A dental school offering care to residents throughout southeastern North Carolina will base itself in Brunswick County.
East Carolina University on Friday announced plans to build a $3 million “community service learning center” off U.S. 17 near Bolivia, on donated land adjacent to Novant Health Brunswick Medical Center.
Led by faculty members of the ECU School of Dental Medicine and working with students on rotation, it will provide care to all in need, including residents enrolled in Medicaid, officials said during the project’s unveiling Friday.
They hope to see it open by late summer 2015.
“Even though we’re announcing it in Brunswick County, it is really a regional approach,” said Greg Chadwick, the dental school’s dean. “Because certainly the need for dental care and the opportunities that we have to serve people in this area are just as great in Bladen and Columbus County as well.”
David Stanley, Brunswick County’s health director and a native, recalled days when dental visits required at least a 30 minute drive–for those fortunate enough.
“And I also remember that many of my friends in school did not have that opportunity,” he said. “I remember the pain that they had. I remember the embarrassment that they had to smile. It’s such a sad thing to see a beautiful child not be able to smile because they’re embarrassed of their teeth.”
Access to care of this kind will change realities for children and adults alike, Stanely said. “It’s the right thing for the citizens in this region.”
The Brunswick County site is the eighth ECU has announced in North Carolina, and they’re all in areas seen as under-served. Currently, they’re operating in Ahoskie, Elizabeth City and Lillington. The school is building new centers in Sylvia, Spruce Pine and in Davidson and Robeson counties.
ECU officials said Brunswick County was more than accommodating in the project.
Developer Jeff Earp, president of Brunswick Forest, donated the land the center will occupy, for one. ECU Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences Phyllis Horns said the county also volunteered planning steps and demographic info that helped ECU decide Brunswick County was right for the facility.
At Friday’s gathering, Brunswick County Board of Commissioners Chairman Phil Norris pledged to offer any other assistance that might expedite the process.
“We want the building built as quickly as possible so you can start treating folks, and we don’t want you to get hung up in the bureaucracy,” Norris said.
The funding for the facility’s construction is in the university’s budget.
An ECU spokeswoman said rates for services are still in development.
All of the dental school’s students are North Carolina residents, officials noted, and they’ll be in training to provide care to their fellow neighbors in future practice.
A news release from the school after Friday’s unveiling highlighted a first-year dental student named Jeffrey Zackeru, who grew up in Brunswick County and plans to return after graduation to practice dental medicine.
“It was the mission of the school that drew me to ECU,” Zackeru said in the release. “Being able to provide care to people I grew up with—their families, their grandparents, their children. They supported me, and now I can give something back.”
Ben Brown is a news reporter at Port City Daily. Reach him at [email protected] or (910) 772-6335. On Twitter: @benbrownmedia
