Cook dental clinic on the road to recovery

COOK – As Scenic Rivers Health Services CEO Keith Harvey has learned the hard way, there are two truisms related to floods – a little water can do a lot of damage, and recovery takes longer than expected.
The Scenic Rivers Dental Clinic on River St. had only three to four inches of water in the building, Harvey told the Timberjay on Tuesday, but the damage was extensive and will be expensive to repair.
“It pretty much just destroyed the flooring, and took a lot of the walls out,” he said, “but the biggest thing is it damaged our dental equipment. The vast majority of our dental equipment is not salvageable.”
Working closely with dental equipment supplier Patterson Dental, the damage assessment was grim. While the water didn’t rise high enough to infiltrate the seats of the dental chairs, the bases were submerged, causing damage to critical electrical components. While four remain functional, Harvey said, all will have to be replaced over time. The sterilization equipment was a complete loss, and the cabinetry, some of it essential for housing components of the suction systems, was largely ruined and will have to be replaced.
“Two weeks ago, I would have said we’d be up and running within two weeks,” Harvey said. “Now, I don’t even want to say a date. By mid-August, or early August, we could possibly have three or four chairs up and running and patients being seen. Maybe that’s an aggressive timeline, I don’t know. We thought we could get by with some rolling carts, but the problem is that you have suction that comes up through the floor that you have to have connected to cabinets that are fixed, and we’re going to have to replace a lot of that, and that takes time. You have to order it, they have to manufacture it and bring it, and that’s probably a month out for a lot of that.”
Harvey was glad to report that no one from the clinic has been laid off, as they’ve been spread around to other clinics for the time being.
But they did have to turn away two University of Minnesota dental students who were scheduled to work in the clinic for three weeks, beginning next Monday.
“That was a punch in the gut, because that is such a vital part of our service working with the university,” Harvey said.
He was hopeful that they might be able to bring the students in after the clinic is back up and running, but that could be difficult depending on the timing related to the start of fall semester classes, he said. But the flood was a double-blow in that regard to Scenic Rivers, as the student internships are a key component of their recruitment efforts to bring additional dentists to the area.
Funding repairs
While the general public may see health care as an industry flush with cash, that’s not the case for community health care centers like Scenic Rivers, Harvey said.
“We get a fairly significant grant from the federal government to support us because we’re a federally qualified health center,” Harvey said. “Thank God for that, because if we didn’t have that funding, we would not exist, and that’s a fact. We serve a community of underserved, low-income uninsured or underinsured folks, so we bear a significant burden of that cost. That’s why we’re a nonprofit organization. And we struggle like any other business.”
And while some similar community health care organizations get additional support from affiliated foundations and endowments, that’s not the case for Scenic Rivers, Harvey said. A community fundraising program of some sort is likely in the future, Harvey said, but the current focus is on getting the dental clinic back in operation.
“We’re limited on what we can use our insurance for,” Harvey said. “We have some flood insurance, but it only covers the building, it doesn’t cover contents. We’re reaching out to various organizations like the Delta Dental Foundation, an organization called Direct Relief, and we’ll certainly consider anything we can get from the state of Minnesota and FEMA and the federal government. We’re also looking at the IRRRB and we’re going to talk to them about the possibility of helping us fund some of that cost.”
And like some other businesses and individuals affected by the flood, Scenic Rivers has launched a crowdfunding campaign for people to donate to the cause. The campaign is set up on Spotfund, a slightly less familiar alternative to GoFundMe, but one of the fastest growing crowdfunding sites today. Spotfund also has 4.8 rating out of five possible stars from Trustpilot, a consumer-driven company review site. The response thus far has been lukewarm, but Harvey hopes that when people understand the need more donations may come in.
Harvey said he’s gratified by the response from the Cook community.
“It’s just been fantastic,” he said. “People are very understanding, and our patients have been understanding. They’re disappointed because we’re not open and they have to reschedule appointments, but they’ve been patient. We’re greatly appreciative of everything from the community and we are going to do what we can to get back up and running as quickly as possible. I’m confident that when we get through this we’re going to be better off, we’re going to have better equipment, we’re going to have a nicer facility, and everything is going to be in pretty good shape. It’s just going to take some time.”
For dental clinic status updates, see the Scenic Rivers Health Services page on Facebook. To make a donation to the Spotfund campaign, go to http://spot.fund/23w3hsc.