Dentist Kenneth Kovanda doesn’t know how much it costs his
practice each year, and he doesn’t care.
When it comes to kids, especially those whose parents can’t
afford treatment, he just can’t help but make sure they get the
care they deserve.
Dentist Kenneth Kovanda doesn’t know how much it costs his practice each year, and he doesn’t care.
When it comes to kids, especially those whose parents can’t afford treatment, he just can’t help but make sure they get the care they deserve.
Even if that means that he’s doing dental work for free.
“I don’t even think about it,” the Hollister dentist said about how much it costs his business. “We do whatever we have to do. I show the parents what needs to be done, and if they say they can’t pay for it, we set up the appointment anyway.”
Kovanda said there aren’t too many families coming into his office each year that simply can’t afford to pay their bills, but he feels it’s not a big deal to help out where he can.
“I can’t see kids suffer because of the parents,” he said. “Dentistry has been good to me. You have to give back – you can’t always be a taker.”
Kovanda is one of many health care providers that use their knowledge to help out the community in ways no one else can.
As a member of the Monterey Bay Dental Association, Kovanda learned about the need of children from low-income families in the area when he moved his practice to Hollister in the mid-80s. He also became one of the area’s dentists that visit elementary schools to teach children proper dental care and look at their teeth.
“Someone called me up,” he said, “so I go on my lunch hour to look at third graders and we tell the parents what needs to be done. We’re not there to push ourselves, we’re just there to let them know.”
The dental association serves children in San Benito, Monterey and Santa Cruz counties. A similar program is run by the Health Trust in Santa Clara County.
Since February was National Dental Health month, dentists like Kovanda, Mark Stephens and Todd Cochrane prepared to block out time to make trips to local schools in Hollister.
“There’s a lot going on now,” Cochrane said. “It’s the time we put a big crunch on children’s screenings. Usually what we’ll do is block out two to four hours.”
While the dentists usually would use that time to do dental work on paying clients, they choose to spend their time screening all the third-graders from participating schools and also perform basic care for all kindergarten through fourth-grade students that are from migrant families.
“Sometimes the care these kids get is sporadic at best,” Cochrane said. “Since their families move frequently, they don’t get continuous care.”
For migrant families, dental care is just one part of children’s health that often is left untreated. That’s where community service projects from places like Kaiser Gilroy Medical Offices come in.
“Kaiser allows our staff to go out and do that,” said Debra Stone, health education manager for Kaiser. “Our members are community members. If we can keep the community healthy, that’s really our focus,”
Each Tuesday, Kaiser pediatricians Steve Hernandez, Christine Levan and Monica Mensah rotate work in their morning shift at Eliot Elementary School in Gilroy.
“I feel like we’re where people need us,” Levan said. “It’s not your basic school clinic. You can actually do more for the patients, and it’s the underserved population. You also find that you have a lot of different cultural differences. There are a lot of non-English-speaking families.”
All three of the pediatricians, who serve children from infants to 18-year-olds who are brought to the clinic, understand the difficulties of the families receiving proper care, as all of their families hail from countries with poor health care.
“You can really empathize, knowing what it’s like for them,” Levan said.
Hernandez, whose grandfather moved the family to San Jose from Guanajuato, Mexico, agreed.
“It feels good. I’m Mexican-American, first generation, so I can relate,” he said. “Sometimes the translations aren’t always working with a translator that you would get through the culture.”
Hernandez said he was happy he has the opportunity to help the underserved, and that Kaiser has worked with the doctors’ schedules to let them do it.
“I don’t think (another health provider) would let us do it on our office time,” he said. “It just shows Kaiser’s generosity.”
Mensah, who was born in Ghana, also was excited to take part in the program, which was offered to the doctors last year.
“Kaiser is making a real effort to go out into the community,” she said. “It’s something we all want to do, but there’s not enough time. You get exhausted.”
The doctors see all kinds of problems with the patients, but they mainly see chronic pains, like headaches and stomach pain, and more patients with tuberculosis and obesity than their usual Kaiser patients.
“It’s all across,” Mensah said.
She added that she has found many different ways to help uninsured and underserved families that come to the clinic.
“I was amazed how many services that they can get that I never even had heard of before,” she said. “Most of our patients here don’t need these resources. (At Eliot), the parents typically are poor. They don’t have any form of health care.”
Like with all those in the health field who share their expertise to help the undeserved the South Valley, Hernandez said he feels a certain pride by doing his part.
“I think the families show a lot of gratitude,” he said. “They’re never demanding.”
Cochrane, who has been helping with the dental program in San Benito County for 10 years now, also finds joy in giving back.
“You always leave the school feeling really good,” he said. “Seeing all the kids lined up with tooth brushes. … it’s really very cute.”
He also sees that the effort is helping to make a change.
“I see fewer problems than I did 10 years ago,” he said. “That’s rewarding, too. Some of these programs we do are really paying off, and the kids are benefiting.”
