{"id":44051,"date":"2014-08-04T04:00:27","date_gmt":"2014-08-03T18:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=44051"},"modified":"2014-08-04T04:00:27","modified_gmt":"2014-08-03T18:00:27","slug":"team-doctors-aids-kids-special-needs-sda-clinic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/team-doctors-aids-kids-special-needs-sda-clinic\/","title":{"rendered":"Team of doctors aids kids with special needs at the SDA Clinic"},"content":{"rendered":"

With some children having to wait as long as four to five months for treatment because of complications due to their special needs and their young age, the arrival of a team of professionals to administer anesthesia and dental care comes as a great relief to Claudine Benig, mother of Irish Benig, a special needs child who could not undergo normal dental care without the aid of anesthesia.<\/p>\n

According to Seventh Day Adventist\u2019s clinic director Dr. Ken Pierson, the volunteers arrived from California last week and are here for two weeks to help children and parents who otherwise could only have found treatment off-island.<\/p>\n

\"From
From left, Dr. Kenneth W. Pierson, Melissa Harness, RN, Dr. Shawn Fox, and SDA Dental Clinic\u2019s Cygi Cepeda. (Dennis B. Chan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The team is made up of Dr. Shawn Michael Fox, dentist; Dr. Kenneth W. Pierson, anesthesiologist; and registered nurse Melissa Harness.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe key is you got to have a licensed and qualified anesthesiologist, and then you\u2019ve got to have someone who is familiar with doing treatment under general anesthesia,\u201d director Pierson said about treatment for special needs children under the age of 6 or 7.<\/p>\n

Fox said he has worked with children with attention deficit disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, Down syndrome, and cerebral palsy, among others. Many of these children undergo dental treatment under anesthesia because of the difficulty in getting them to cooperate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s best to get them to sleep to ensure the work is done correctly,\u201d Fox said.<\/p>\n

Pierson said the volunteer team\u2019s type of treatment is not readily available on Saipan, and that there is a tremendous need for this kind of work as potentially 45 or 50 children may be treated this week and next.<\/p>\n

He noted the medical and flight costs may prevent children and their parents from getting treatment.<\/p>\n

Benig said her daughter had to wait for about two months before being treated Thursday. She said the swelling in her daughter\u2019s mouth would cause fevers.<\/p>\n

Previously, she said, she had relied on antibiotics in helping her daughter.<\/p>\n

The volunteers work together at pediatric clinic in Visalia, California.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like doing mission work, and giving back to the communities, and other communities as well as my own. That\u2019s probably the biggest reason [for volunteering], there\u2019s a big need for it,\u201d Fox said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With some children having to wait as long as four to five months for treatment…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":44053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[163],"class_list":["post-44051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-kids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}