Fairfield, CT - Fairfield dentist Susan K. Levine has raised $21,410 through GoFundMe and helped to open a maternity clinic for an underserved population in the French-speaking West African nation of Senegal.
The account funded completion of construction of a clinic that was abandoned four years ago when funding was no longer available. The clinic is part of a health center in a community called Joal.
Dr. Levine learned of the need to complete the work when she visited Senegal in November of 2016, her interest driven by a Senegalese expatriate who was her French-language tutor.
He showed her a photograph of his daughters back home and one of them obviously had two front teeth missing, a condition Dr. Levine was able to correct by having an impression made long-distance.
“What I found out then,” she says, “is that many in this region gave birth at home because the facilities available were inadequate and as a result too many women and children perished.”
“I appeared to me that completing the work was certainly doable. Being able help like this lifts your spirits and puts problems in perspective.”
Dr. Levin started dentistry in 1982 at her father Bernard’s practice in Stratford and established her own practice in general and cosmetic dentistry in Fairfield in 1997. Dad was at one time a volunteer on a kibbutz in Israel. At 92 now and retired in Florida, he told his daughter her outreach in Senegal is “gutsy.”
PHOTO:
Dr. Susan Levine at the health center in Senegal.
F