Dentist volunteer sees sad sights in Cambodian prison

Dunedin dentist Gary Marks had good reason to savour his Christmas dinner this year, having experienced a taste of the squalid conditions of a French colonial-era prison in Cambodia.

Mr Marks (61) returned to Dunedin last month after about four weeks working as a volunteer for an international dental school in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.

The assignment included a week on Cambodia's south coast, working inside Kampot Prison helping supervise 15 dental students treating the facility's inmates.

Mr Marks told the Otago Daily Times yesterday the inmates' dental problems included chronic decay requiring numerous tooth extractions, but the challenges did not stop there.

Cramped and "fairly squalid" conditions meant the inmates slept about 50 people to a room, on thin mattresses over concrete floors, and health problems - including HIV, scabies and conjunctivitis - were prevalent, he said.

"They were pretty sad sights in there."

Despite that, Mr Marks and his students were only allowed to work after agreeing to provide their own power generator and treat the prison's staff and families first.

Treating the staff and families took the best part of a day and a-half out of the group's week-long trip to the prison, Mr Marks said.

The international dental school in Phnom Penh, established five years ago, was one of only two in Cambodia.

The school's dean, Callum Durward, is a former dental school classmate of Mr Marks and had invited his former colleagues to volunteer to work in Cambodia.

The country lacked trained dentists as well as dental schools, with those who did practise dentistry not requiring formal qualifications, he said.

"But you know what you're getting, of course.

A lot of these back-street boys have just learnt off their parents or learnt off someone else."

Poverty had actually prevented the worst dental problems associated with the consumption of refined carbohydrates or sugars, but that was changing as people became more affluent and could afford junk food, he said.

Mr Marks' work in Kampot Prison was supported by the New Zealand-based One-2-One Charitable Trust, which assisted in orphanages and aimed to help prisoners in the country's 35 prisons over the next few years, he said.

While conceding his work was "a drop in the bucket", Mr Marks believed it was rewarding for both the prisoners and students.

He previously worked as a volunteer treating children in Nepal, and planned to return to Cambodia to continue his work in "a couple of years".