Dr. Miguel Villaseñor Calvillo is the protagonist of an upbeat saga with a bittersweet denouement that is playing out at the dental clinic created almost a year and half ago at Ajijic’s Centro de Salud public health facility.
As supervisor of oral health for Jalisco’s Ministry of Health (SSJ), Villaseñor helped spearhead the remodeling of the health center to accommodate a new dental care area dedicated to treating low-income patients. It was designed as a pilot project to be a model for upgrading oral health care services at other state-run centers.
The clinic was fully equipped through a community fund-raising campaign that brought in 68,500 pesos from private donations and proceeds from the town’s annual San Andrés fiestas. It was inaugurated with great fanfare on December 17, 2014, with María del Sagrario Diáz, mother of Jalisco Governor Aristóteles Sandoval, attending as the project’s godmother.
Villaseñor relinquished his high-ranking SSJ post and corresponding pay scale, to take the lead in offering weekend appointments in orthodontics, prosthodontics and other dental specialties to people unable to afford private care. He has accomplished his mission with a long list of success stories for adolescents afflicted with severe oral deformities and seniors desperately in need of bridge work or more complete prosthetics.
A case in point is 18-year-old Martha Cecilia Morán Perales who was diagnosed with a severe overbite, complicated by an incisor growing sideways in her upper gums. After a year of treatment with surgery and brackets her problems have been practically corrected, lacking a few more months before the braces are removed to reveal a perfect smile.
Villaseñor confronted a more complicated challenge with Miguel Angel Moreno Casillas, now 17, who dental structure and face were misshapen due to 16 extra teeth buried in the flesh of one check. The useless teeth have been extracted, molars are starting to move into the proper places and the boy’s face now looks quite normal.
Both of the teens are delighted with the progress they’re experiencing and newly gained self-esteem.
But the dark side of the story is Villaseñor’s disappointment with state and municipal officials who have let him down on providing essential materials, supplies and competent weekday staffing at the clinic. He suspects that upper level SSJ personnel and local government leaders initially backed the project for political gain, abandoning support after last summer’s elections.
Villaseñor laments that the SSJ dentist who runs the clinic Monday through Friday seems to be indifferent to patient care and simply follows instructions to perform tooth cleaning and extractions. As evidence of shenanigans that have impeded his efforts to perform more advanced procedures, he claims that the regular dentist received supplies from the SSJ that were hidden away in a locked drawer to keep them out of reach on weekends
One witness to Villaseñor’s noble work is Barbara Naisby, a registered dental nurse from Ireland. She and her husband, David, a retired dentist, have stood at his side for a full year, helping handle detailed patient records, requisite government paperwork and other tasks.
“We have heard lovely testimonies from older people who Miguel has fitted with dentures,” she observes. “He has been paying for orthodontic supplies and other materials out of his own pocket, because he gets no funding. It’s shameful really.”
The opening chapter of the dental clinic will soon close when Villaseñor is reassigned to Poncitlan’s Centro de Salud. “With the right person in put charge, it still has potential for future success,” Naisby remarks hopefully despite the likelihood of a poor prognosis.