Following the completion of the exemplar dental clinic in March of this year, as part of the overall renovations undertaken at Chilomoni Health Centre, a generous grant from Foundation Eagle, enabled AMECA to purchase specialist dental equipment from world renowned Henry Schein in South Africa.

Dental Equipment Service Technician Andre Wessels, provided expert technical services and knowledge, dealing with every challenge efficiently and calmly. Andre sensibly brought with him, additional fittings from South Africa, which were certainly needed!!

The equipment installed included a portable digital X-Ray an ultrasonic bath, a vacuum autoclave, a water distiller, and an instrument wrapper & sealer machine. Our profound gratitude to Henry Schein, who kindly donated a computer and software, on which to view the images.

The dental clinic is the first of its kind at health centre level in Malawi and will certainly be one of the best equipped dental departments in Malawi. Currently, there is no qualified dentist in post, as the first cohort of Dental Surgery graduates will only complete their internships in April 2026. There is a dental therapist at Chilomoni, but current services are sadly limited to tooth extractions.

The new Maternity autoclave, is also now sited in the Decontamination Room at Dentistry. This room is now, in effect, a Central Sterile Services Department (CSSD), or to the layman, a central instrument decontamination facility for the entire health centre, again, a first in standards of good practice and safe infection control for clinical instruments in health centres.