The North Shore Health Care Foundation (NSHCF) in Grand Marais recently received a grant of $10,000 from the Medica Foundation.
“The Medica grant will help us continue our work in 2018,” said Paul Nelson, who chairs the NSHCF.
“The Medica Foundation is the charitable giving arm of Medica Health Plans, a Minnesota-based nonprofit HMO and has been a great supporter of the North Shore Health Care Foundation’s Oral Health Task Force (OHTF) providing similar funding in previous years.
“OHTF seeks to provide oral health care and education to all children from prenatal to 26 years old in Cook County and on the Grand Portage Reservation,” Nelson said.
“But that is expensive, and we combine the Medica award with similar awards from Lloyd K. Johnson, Delta Dental, Northland and North Shore Health Care Foundations, Cook County Community Funds, our Lions and Lionesses and many others to provide these services. None of this would be possible if it weren’t for the dedicated volunteers who make up the task force. They include Rita Plourde, Teresa Borak, Joni Kristenson, Dr. Alyssa Hedstrom, Paula Sundet Wolf, Jetty St. John, Georgene Daubanton, Bonnie Dalin, Karl Hansen, John Bottger and Paul Nelson,” he said.
Local volunteers, Nelson said, help in a variety of ways. These volunteers serve on our task force and oversee all activities which include: . Outreach and education of families and children from birth. Bonnie Dalin is a dental hygienist who develops educational materials, trains nurses to apply fluoride, and works directly with prenatal mothers and WIC participants. . Dental care at the Grand Marais Family Dentistry for cleanings, X-rays, fluoride treatment and sometimes extractions. Dental screenings occur in four schools, the WIC program, and the Sawtooth Mountain Clinic. . Administrative work is done by part-time staff member Georgene Daubanton who works with parents to arrange payment of their children’s dental care through our sliding fee scale. She also helps them schedule dentist appointments for their children and provides transportation if necessary. She arranges all school screenings and community health fairs in Cook County and the Grand Portage Reservation. During 2017: . 425 school children were screened for oral health problems in four schools. . 35 mothers with 40 children in the WIC program learned the importance of oral health. . 78 children attended the two free days at the dentist (up from 59 in 2016). . 55 preschoolers came for a site visit to the dentist for oral health screening and fluoride sealants. . 21 kindergarten children came for a fun day at the dentist including fluoride treatment.
“As a result of our oral health screenings, 127 children received follow-up care at the dentist,” said Nelson. “For 66 we paid 95 percent of the cost. For 48 we paid 75 percent, for six we paid 50 percent, for three, 25 percent. There were four with insurance.
We distributed information to 1,154 people in Cook County and the Grand Portage Reservation who learned about the Oral Health Task Force program through wellness fairs, mini-fluoride clinics, and community events. They also received dental kits.
“During 2017, our program spent $38,886 on our sliding fee scale subsidizing children’s oral health care at the dentist. This was up from $27,108 in 2016. More children are visiting the dentist because of our outreach efforts by staff, WTIP, advertisements in local papers such as the Herald and our website www.northshoreheahcarefoundation.org/ oralhealth.php
“Our future goals are to educate every child and parent in our area about the necessity of good oral health care, especially since it can result in a significant reduction in children’s dental disease and the need for future dental work, a costly process,” Nelson said.
“We will continue to subsidize children’s oral health care and are working on finding a way to make our program sustainable, without the need for extensive grant support. Ideally, our local healthcare community will be able to absorb most of our functions and make them part of their daily operations.”
The North Shore Health Care Foundation strongly supports the work of its task force, recently adding long-term support as one of its core values.
During 2018 the Medica Foundation awarded $1.2 million in grants to nonprofit organizations throughout Medica’s service area that will serve about 200,000 people.
Funding priorities for the Medica Foundation include behavioral health, early childhood health, and general health improvement.
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