Soibada, Maubisse, Manetu, Hato Bullico

28th September to the 18th October 2025

A big thank you to Dr Ashley Freeman who donated lots of extraction instruments and toothpaste on Sunday in Darwin before Mary flew out. These instruments will be put to good use by TLDP. 

Mary arrived on the early Air North flight to be met by Judite from the Rotary office in her truck. 

Then we were off to the office where Tino, Ana Paula Salgado and Ana Martins came along to sort out donations for some of the government dental clinics who have very little. We had another big donation of extraction instruments from Dr Barry Thompson and requests for these from Uato Carabou Health centre and Atauro dental staff. On the way out of Dili we called in on Ana Tilman our previous Maubara dental nurse and her baby boy Delan.

Then it was off to Soibada for our first clinic after a stop at Manatuto to pass on the exo instruments.

We had been asked by Tamara Sloper-Harding (Friends of Soibada) who served in the peacemaking task force INTERFET in 1999 to hold an Outreach clinic in Soibada at the request of the Timorese community there. Soibada is a very pretty village with lovely old Portuguese buildings about 3 hours from Dili. It had a good parish hall for us to set up in a short walk from the guesthouse built by the Friends of Soibada and lots of people needing dental treatment.

The team had a very enjoyable well-organised busy time in Soibada. We were joined by Dr Celia Bosco a Balinese trained Timorese dentist and Higino Soibada’s own dental nurse.

After 3 very busy days of treating patients and meetings with the health centre staff, we said goodbye to Tamara with a promise to return in 2026. Tamara has the space in her guesthouse to build a dental clinic so hopefully next year that might be underway.

The Team and Tamara in the foundations of her new dental surgery

After a lunch stop in Manatuto it was back to Dili for the night.

Saturday saw the team joined by Dr Krysten Allwood and Steve Hodgkin. Stev is a dental tech who returned to Timor a second time in 2025 to install a chair in the Carmelite clinic in Maubisse and the government clinic in Liquicia. After collecting Krysten and Steve it was off to Maubisse and the cooler climate.

Steve and Januario the Timorese technician who teaches at a vocational school in Tibar spent Monday and Tuesday working on the new chair and other assorted equipment for the  Maubisse Carmelite clinic. At the same time the team saw patients outside at the front of the clinic so it was a very productive two days

Ana Martins trying out the new equipment at Maubisse.

The team then spent Wednesday and Thursday at Manetu a village about one and a half hours from Maubisse town. The Manetu community had repeatedly asked for dental visits, but the bad state of the road had made this impossible up until this October. It was great to see the start of the road from Maubisse to Turascai being widened and graded so trips out this way will hopefully be a lot easier in the future.

While we were in Manetu the technicians Steve and Januario visited the Maubisse hospital only to find a broken dental chair. So, Steve and Januario unable to resist the challenge with the help of a new Chinese hardware store at Maubisse fixed their chair, worked out the compressor was no good, made new friends at the hospital, and had a nice lunch. Thursday morning saw Steve, Januario and Judite leaving for Liquicia government dental clinic to install another of the RARE (Rotary Australia Repurposing Equipment) dental chairs that had been shipped over earlier in the year. 

 After a couple of very long days with the help of Tison a Maubara dental nurse, Liquicia finally has a working dental chair with suction and handpieces. In January Tino is being relocated to Liquicia his hometown so he was keen to have some equipment that he could use.

Meanwhile back in Maubisse the team were very busy in the village of Manelobos about 40 minutes away. 

The Maubisse subdistrict has over 20,000 people with limited access to dental treatment at the Maubisse hospital where there is often a lack of local anaesthetic and broken equipment. 

Ana Paula TLDP’s Australian trained dental assistant and organiser of our program

Saturday the 11^{th of} October saw Judite return with two new volunteers Dr Fiona Little a periodontist from Sydney and her son Angus. We spent the next four days at Hato Bullico treating the local community and the students from the nearby Catholic high school. 

In Hato Bullico we did not think there were as many patients as in the past however each patient seemed to have a lot of dental work.

Paulo, Judite, Tino, Dr Fiona, Dr Mary, Angus, Dr Krysten, Ana Paula and Ana Martins.