Inclusive oral health

a report on the maturation of an extension project in Paraná

Abstract

The objective of this work is to report the experience of the maturation of an extension program in oral health for people with specific needs, from the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), detailing the benefits of adding to the project the possibility of providing this group of individuals with dental care in a hospital environment. The extension project has existed since 2016 and carries out activi­ties in four special education schools in Curitiba. During the extension activities, screenings are carried out to verify the treatment needs of people with disabilities. The people are then referred to receive care at the UFPR Dentistry Clinic. How­ever, many of these patients have high treatment complexity and impossibility of outpatient management, which is why the partnership between UFPR and the Clinical Hospital Complex (CHC-UFPR), established in 2019, was essential to en­sure humanized and comprehensive treatment for people with specific needs. Hospital care is provided under general anesthesia and allows for the conduction of complex treatments. This project is important to meet a previously suppressed demand at our university, in addition to providing differentiated experience to the dental students involved, making them more human professionals with a focus on comprehensive care.