My Experience at a Private Dental Clinic in Brazil
HAVANA TIMES – The last time I’d seen a dentist here in Brazil was at a state clinic after I’d already spent several months enduring a toothache. They kept giving me appointments very spread out in time, but the hoped-for result never arrived.
I even spent 44 Brazilian reales (about US $8) on an Uber to go to a hospital that was fairly distant (but also state-run and free), where they took some X-rays that also weren’t very useful to me. That’s when I decided to try a private clinic.
My wife recommended the Odontology Institute of the Americas, where she goes. She’s managed to satisfy her dream of putting braces on her teeth for a modest price, although it’s something that’s quite expensive in Brazil.
In fact, the braces themselves were free, and she only pays 60 reales (around $11) a month for the adjustments and maintenance. The low price is because the clinic is also a teaching facility, where students of this specialty do their practice. The standard value for that work is much greater, around 150 reales (about US $28 a month).
Encouraged by her good recommendation, I went there to receive a diagnosis and find out the price of a filling. The comfort and elegance of the lobby impressed me. I was examined by the main specialist, but she gave me an unexpected diagnosis: the tooth would have to be extracted.
The price of a filling performed by the students would have been around US $9, like most of the services they offer. But since this was an extraction, I preferred to pay the professor’s fee, which was 150 reales (US $28).
For greater certainty, the dentist asked me to have a panoramic X-ray taken. At first, I didn’t know what that was. It cost me around US $10, and I had to have it done in the UNIX dental radiology clinic, another place that offered the comforts and attention of a hotel.
Nine days after the first appointment, I was sitting in the dental chair for the extraction. From a corner of the room, the television played relaxing pop music.
I was attended to with all due care. They even placed a semi-transparent cloth over my face with the aim of isolating the area of intervention from the rest of my head. In that way, they avoided any type of contamination and spared me from having to watch the utensils being prepared. At the same time, the cloth softened the intensity of the light above my eyes.
They disinfected my face with extreme delicacy. They spoke warmly to me, and even allowed themselves a few jokes, all very respectful. The pain level was minimal. And with each step they informed me what they were doing. They asked me if I felt pain.
Truly, the entire experience was marked by my own fear of pain, not by the pain itself.
It was a fear that was created years ago, by repeated painful experiences in the Cuban clinics, where the oral dentists almost always do what they can, but there’s neither the technology, nor the utensils, nor the comfortable surroundings. Beyond that, however, they also lack the protocols of respect and sensitivity that every human being deserves.
Three days after an extraction which involved stitches, a practice that I never saw done in my country, the scar was clean, and the recovery has been painless. The total cost of the surgery was 200 reales, (US $36), which represents just 4% of our total monthly income.