A mobile charity dental clinic has received teary calls from desperate people after vital equipment was stolen from their trailer.
Revive a Smile is based in Hamilton, but the clinic travels to provide free dental care. Between April 8 and 10, a thief or thieves took laptops, x-ray devices and a defibrillator along with other vital equipment.
The stolen items were valued at tens of thousands of dollars.
Police in a statement urged, “anyone who saw suspicious activity on or near the Bankwood Road, Chartwell school between Monday 8 April and Wednesday 10 April” to call 105″.
Volunteer endodontist Dr Assil Russell told Breakfast this morning: “It’s been so heartbreaking.
“We were actually on a little bit of a much-deserved break, so we only found out about it this week.”
Police narrowed down the timeline to the theft to between April 8 and 10, she explained.
“It’s been just heartbreaking,” she repeated. “There’s no other way to describe it.
“We are really devastated, it’s having a huge impact on our morale.
“These thieves didn’t just steal equipment and instruments and things that we need to work — they’ve actually stolen this service from the entire community.
“All the people that we serve are now going to be deprived of the charitable work that all our volunteers are doing for the community.”
Down in the mouth
Revive a Smile served people who were desperate and in pain with nowhere else to go, Russell added.
She said the service is “life-changing” for a lot of patients who otherwise couldn’t access dental care.
“We were their lifeline, so to speak, and they’ve just completely deprived the entire community of this. It’s horrendous.
“We’re now having to call people and reschedule their appointments. We’ve had people crying over the phone when we’ve told them, ‘Look, we’re so sorry, we just can’t work without our equipment’.”
It wasn’t just the Hamilton community that was affected, she stressed, pointing to the clinic’s travels around the North Island.
“They’ve actually deprived hundreds of people all over the North Island of this service.”
Some of the vulnerable people the clinic saw had life-threatening infections, Russell said.
“It’s just completely devastating. We just want the things back.”
The burglar or burglars would struggle to sell the items anyway, she added.
“They’re worthless to them, but they are worth a lot to us.
“We have a lot of very happy people that walk out of our clinic, and now we have a lot of devastated people that are not gonna be able to get that experience.”
Russell urged anyone with information to get in touch with police – and if the thief or thieves were looking on, she asked them to return the equipment, anonymously if they preferred.
She said the stolen items would take weeks to replace, even if the money was raised, and a lot of the equipment would need to be specially ordered.
“We really just want it back so that we can continue working,” Russell said.
“We can’t just go down to the local Noel Leeming or something and buy these instruments.”
The charity planned to set up a Givealittle account to fundraise for new equipment if it was needed.