Project Mountain Dentist

Tenzin is a qualified dental surgeon. However, people are more familiar with him as Tregxel Dorji, the founding member of ‘GOKAB’ and co-leader of the fan base of our national football team. His personal and professional interests culminated in starting ‘Project Mountain Dentist’.

Project Mountain Dentist started in 2019 as a voluntary initiative by a young group of dentists working closely with the Ministry of Health to supplement the outreach dental services with the latest portable equipment, to those Bhutanese deprived of dental services due to remoteness from dental clinics, physical disabilities and religious discourse (tsam). The service is primarily aimed at providing education about and promoting oral health and dental hygiene.

The Ministry of Health organizes Dental Out Reach Clinics in remote areas where teams of dentists and other professionals provide basic dental services. However, they face difficulties to provide proper treatment to these people due to  a lack of equipment,

“My project aims to procure portable dental equipment so that the project can provide the highest quality of dental services on par with any urban clinics. My aim is to help and support the government to reach the remotest places and to additionally expand and involve more dentists who are currently struggling to find employment,” shared Tenzin.

Tenzin resigned from his government job as a dentist despite his passion for his profession and uncertainty about the future so that he could give his undivided attention to these projects that he holds dear,

“Generous and supportive friends helped me to buy a mobile dental chair and other equipment. This is how Project Mountain Dentist came to be,” stated Tenzin.

Tenzin initially conceived the idea while trekking with his friends as part of a group called “Trekkers 360”. During these treks, before Tenzin and his friends reached a campsite or village, people would already be waiting for them since people residing in those remote areas had heard there was a dentist and a psychiatrist present in the group. This became a familiar sight. Although Tenzin could see that the people needed help especially in terms of treatment, all he could give them were painkillers which provided only temporary relief and not a permanent or curative solution. This made him feel helpless and sad and consequently led to the idea of starting such a project.

“I returned from India to serve Bhutan and my fellow citizens in my capacity as a dentist. I worked passionately for five years in Paro and Thimphu. However, social equality has always been engrained within me and I wished to contribute more to the community,” said Tenzin, continuing,

“As a dentist, I wanted to do more than just the daily grind and especially wished to educate and treat everyone equally. Being a mountainous country, means certain pockets of people in Bhutan cannot be reached. They were the ones I wanted to help.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Tenzin travelled and provided dental services to far-flung places such as Lingzhi and Genekha in Thimphu, Sombeykha and Rangtsi in Haa and numerous tsamkhangs (meditation sites).

Initially, Tenzin was assisted by some of his dentist friends who helped organize and manage the outreach programs and funding was provided by his trekking friends from Trekkers 360. Today, the Project Mountain Dentist has a total of 36 active volunteers, comprising of registered doctors, dentists and health professionals and looks forward to recruiting more permanent team members in the future.