The six children were chosen because they were most in need of dental work.
Pediatric dentist Yoshita Patel and her team recently gave six Brevard kids bright new smiles — all at no cost to their parents.
It didn’t matter where they were from, what language they spoke or how extensive the damage to their teeth was: She and her staff were ready to dive in and get to work.
“I love my community, and I want to serve my community in whatever way I can,” said Patel, owner of Viera Pediatric Dentistry. “This just happens to be one very specific way that I can help a very underserved population who lives and works in our community, and I can help their kids.”
For the past four years, Viera Pediatric Dentistry has donated their services to kids most in need of dental work. It’s a collaborative effort: School district employees and Brevard Health Alliance help screen children who will benefit most from the services with the dental practice — typically kids who need a “full-mouth rehabilitation,” or children with extreme dental anxiety who can’t receive care without sedation. The Children’s Home Society help with organizing the effort and with transportation. Space Coast Health Foundation donate funds to cover sedation for the patients.
This year — just over a month after President Donald Trump issued an executive order rescinding a 2011 directive that prevented Immigration and Customs Enforcement from conducting activity at sensitive locations like medical facilities — all six elementary-age patients came from Spanish-speaking homes. The kids primarily spoke Spanish, and their parents did not speak any English.
Prep ahead of time ‘requires a lot of teamwork’
A recent Wednesday was a blur of activity in Patel’s office, with the first child whisked back for their cleaning at about 6:45 a.m. For the next five and a half hours or so, staff worked quickly to prep kids, clean teeth and communicate with parents in the waiting area about how things were going.
“This will changes their lives,” said Luis Mendoza, a Spanish-speaking pediatric anesthesiologist. “Many of them are in pain before the procedure.”
Prior to that morning, months of preparation went into the day. District staff and Brevard Health Alliance helped screen kids to see who was most in need of dental work. Then, once the children were chosen, Patel worked to make adjustments on her end to ensure that the practice could meet the communication needs of the families.
“I requested a Spanish-speaking anesthesiologist and a Spanish (speaking) nurse so that we could clearly go over the risks, benefits and outcomes with the parents with hesitancy of, ‘do they understand it fully?’” Patel said.
“(It’s) very much an informed consent of treatment versus, ‘I think they’ve got it,’ on Google Translate, things like that.”
Pre-op appointments also took place in January on one of Patel’s days off, with the Children’s Home Society providing transportation for some families. That day, families came in to make sure the kids were good candidates for sedation and that they understood how to prepare for the procedures ahead of time.
“It requires a lot of teamwork,” Patel said. “It takes a lot of communication and effort from a lot of different people to organize and orchestrate one single day of getting the treatment done to all the kids.”
Ivelisse Ramos, wellness coordinator at the Children’s Home Society, said the organization works in partnership with Brevard Health Alliance to help connect low-income families with preventative dental care.
“It’s heartbreaking to see the parents hopeless, almost in tears, when they receive a referral for dental surgery for their children,” she said, adding that many families don’t have health insurance.
Without help like what Patel provides, they likely would not receive care.
Donna Bishop, chief operating officer for Space Coast Health Foundation, said an assessment from 2022 showed dental care was difficult to find in Brevard. It can also impact a child’s development in critical ways. That’s part of why the foundation was excited to donate funds for sedation to Patel.
“We know that dental care is related to … reading scores and so many essential things for those young people, specifically kids,” Bishop said. “Dr. Patel is such a great partner in the community doing her pro bono work that we’re happy to support her work however we can.”
Federal immigration policy impacts
Patel’s parents immigrated to the U.S. in the ’80s. It’s not why she chooses to donate her services, and she doesn’t specifically work with immigrant children — simply those most in need of care. Still, she feels empathetic toward the families who come to see her and the situations they’re going through.
“A lot of these people are escaping really bad situations, and they’re just looking to make a life for their children,” she said. “It just feels like (people are) seeing politics and seeing problems and not really getting to the humanness of the people around them.”
With Trump’s rollback on immigration protections, multiple healthcare groups from around the country have expressed concerns that immigrants will feel unsafe seeking medical care.
National Nurses United, the country’s largest union of registered nurses, issued a statement at the end of January, saying they were “outraged.”
“Our patients, who we make a sacred oath to help and heal, without discrimination, should never be forced to forego lifesaving treatment because our government has made our workplaces sites of harm and terror,” they said.
Katherine Peeler, medical advisor at Physicians for Human Rights, issued a statement denouncing the move.
“Hospitals and clinics should be safe spaces where care is prioritized over fear,” she said. “All patients and their families must be free to access care without fear of immigration consequences or discrimination. Patients must not have to choose between their health and their safety.”
In early February, Michelle Morton, an attorney at ACLU of Florida, said they were already seeing impacts of the policy rollback.
“Underlying (the previous policy) is the idea that there’s a balance between enforcing civil immigration laws and ensuring that we don’t have this underclass of people that are too afraid to go to the hospital, they’re too afraid to send their kids to school,” Morton said.
But at Patel’s office, it doesn’t matter where they’re from.
“I just feel like people lose sight of the humanness of the other people that are around them, and if they just sat down and had a conversation with some of these people, they would understand the courage, bravery, resilience and love that these parents have for their kids,” she said.
“Just like I’m a parent, they’re a parent. And so to me, anyone that walks into my office — whatever, wherever they came from, or what they have, what they don’t have — doesn’t matter.”
Finch Walker is the education reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Walker at [email protected]. X: @_finchwalker.
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