{"id":242025,"date":"2025-10-26T20:14:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T20:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/242025\/"},"modified":"2025-10-26T20:14:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T20:14:08","slug":"southampton-dentist-teaches-dentistry-at-largest-refugee-camp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/242025\/","title":{"rendered":"Southampton dentist teaches dentistry at largest refugee camp"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"RefugeeRefugee Crisis Foundation<\/p>\n

Mr Lugo (middle) has spent time working at a refugee camp in Bangladesh<\/p>\n

An oral surgeon has shared how inspired he has felt carrying out dental work on people at the world’s largest refugee camp.<\/p>\n

Antonio Gagliardi Lugo, 39, originally from Venezuela but now living in Southampton, has worked at Practice Plus Group Hospital for the last five years.<\/p>\n

But he has recently been sharing his expertise by mentoring dentists and helping patients at Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, after getting involved with the Refugee Crisis Foundation charity.<\/p>\n

Mr Lugo said he saw around 90 patients a day while encouraging dentists to carry out things like oral cancer screenings.<\/p>\n

“It’s about giving people skills and making them self-sufficient,” he said.<\/p>\n

“They are already amazing and very well-prepared but then you give them some tips and trivia to play with to re-energise them up and improve their skills, so that they can feel like they are giving more than what they are already giving.”<\/p>\n

Mr Lugo added there are around three million people living in the camp who have been displaced from Myanmar and it has grown in a “very disorganised way”, so he was glad to help.<\/p>\n

“You can see how people are living in small huts and the conditions are not very good, the services are very limited, but the people have a will to keep going, it is very inspiring,” he said.<\/p>\n

More from Hampshire and the Isle of Wight\"RefugeeRefugee Crisis Foundation<\/p>\n

Mr Lugo has enjoyed making a difference to patients and dentists in Bangladesh<\/p>\n

“A tooth out is a bad experience but it’s funny when you do such a bad experience to a person and they smile back at you and say, ‘thank you so much as you’re taking away the pain from me’.<\/p>\n

“Tooth pain can develop into a life-threatening situation where it can produce an infection, so it’s not something you should take for granted, which loads of people do.”<\/p>\n

During his trip, he joined a small team of three dentists, two assistants and a driver to help them transport dental equipment to the clinics.<\/p>\n

The team then treated patients with extractions, oral cancer screening, topical application of fluoride and preventative dental care.<\/p>\n

Being from Venezuela, Mr Lugo says he understands the importance of providing help and support with dental care.<\/p>\n

He said: “I’m some sort of refugee myself. My entry point was different, but I know how important it is to get a chance and have access to healthcare.”<\/p>\n

Hospital director John Crisp said it was “remarkable” Mr Lugo has been “so passionate about mentoring” dentists both in Hampshire and helping Refugee Crisis Foundation in his spare time.<\/p>\n

“We know that his work is making a big impact on people’s lives and we are proud to support his endeavours as everyone should be able to access timely, pain and infection-free oral and dental health,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Refugee Crisis Foundation Mr Lugo (middle) has spent time working at a refugee camp in Bangladesh An oral…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-242025","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}