It's been a harrowing time for a nonprofit dental clinic founded by a Santa Barbara dentist in Afghanistan.
The clinic has been forced to move, and one of its managers was badly beaten by a government official. But, more than four years after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, the Afghanistan Dental Relief Project is still in operation
The clinic was started in 2003. It was when the U.S. was fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Dr. James Rolfe went to the war-torn country. The 87-year-old Santa Barbara dentist thought the U.S. government should be doing more to help Afghanistan's impoverished people.
"I went to Afghanistan, and I went to an orphanage that was at 11,000 feet. I was working there, and then I began to treat people from a local village," said Rolfe. "I found people with seven or eight abscessed teeth, and sometimes they are on the verge of death. They didn't have any dental care in the whole province, which was the size of Connecticut. They would go to a barber and have their tooth extracted by the barber without anaesthetic."
Rolfe realized there were only so many people he could treat. But he had an idea. It was to create a free dental clinic.
"I came back to Santa Barbara, and I bought a 40-foot shipping container," said the Santa Barbara dentist. "I converted it into a dental clinic with three dental chairs, high-speed drills, X-ray machines, and its own diesel generator, and I sent that over to Afghanistan. I hired a dentist and a nurse, and I started a school to train young Afghans to become dental technicians."
He funded most of the project with money from his Santa Barbara dental practice.
The clinic was successful. Rolfe even helped line up and train dentists to do more advanced work. They tapped into patients with money, who would normally travel out of the country for service. The paying customers subsidized the free services.
Then, in 2021, the Taliban takeover occurred.
The clinic was initially closed, but the Taliban allowed it to reopen when they realized they couldn’t help the thousands of people in desperate need of basic care.
Rolfe said they ran into trouble.
"They wanted the land back (which had been given to the clinic by the previous government). There was a rich Taliban guy who wanted the land for a commercial development. The manager was being threatened by the Taliban. We had to find other land. It was difficult, but we finally did it on the outskirts of town (Kabul). We got it all set up, but the Taliban wouldn't give us electricity. So we had to buy a diesel generator. Now, we've converted over to solar power."
Then, there was a new reminder of the Taliban’s oppressive policies.
"The manager there was assaulted by a guy from the Taliban (government) who goes around checking on people. He came into the clinic, and he saw a woman who in the waiting room who was not wearing her hijab. (The hijab is a traditional head covering worn by some Muslim women to show modesty and religious identity) He went into the manager's office and beat him up badly. He had to quit his job and go to Pakistan for surgery on his neck."
Rolfe said he got a visa for the man to come to the U.S. for further treatment.
Because the clinic has lost its high-end, paying patients, the project now relies on donations. Rolfe set up a nonprofit to raise money. The dentist uses his Santa Barbara practice to help. He operates the only 24-hour on-call emergency dental service in the Tri-Counties, and he uses the revenue to help keep the clinic operating.
Rolfe said, despite the troubles, the clinic has served a quarter of a million people in the last two decades.
The Santa Barbara dentist has taken on a second international project. He’s trying to help Palestinian refugees from Gaza. He was able to get into the region to help. But, he said to do it, he had to take the advice of U.N. health officials. He said he was told not to talk about why he was visiting or bring dental supplies, because he wouldn’t be allowed in by the Israeli government to help.
"I worked in four different United Nations hospitals over a period of a month," said Rolfe. "I was trying to provide treatment, but the hospitals only had about half of the things I would need to do things. I had to use my imagination to figure out how can I accomplish procedures when I don't have any scapel handles, or I don't have any needle holders for suturing, or any of the kind of essential things that I would need. It was really complicated."
Rolfe said he’s hoping to get permission to send some badly needed dental supplies to the Palestinian refugee relief effort.
