Northamptonshire dentist treats 200 patients a day in Mozambique

Dr Vivak Shah employed his children as dental nurses during the charitable trip to east Africa

A dentist has told how he treated 200 patients a day on a two-week charitable trip to Mozambique.

Dr Vivak Shah, from Northamptonshire, was joined by his children Arjun, 12, and Aryan, 10.

They stayed in the coastal town of Vilanculos and travelled around the African country treating patients.

"Every day was a different adventure; we would go out to different villages every day," Dr Shah told BBC Radio Northampton.

The dentist, who is based at Saving Smiles' practices in Rushden and Weedon Bec, said travel could involve road journeys taking two to three hours, and speedboats.

He said there was a generational gap among the patients, with older people having better teeth thanks to eating a more "authentic" diet, whereas youngsters showed more signs of decay.

Dr Shah was joined by Arjun, 12, and Aryan, 10, on the excursion

"The big issue is the people there don't really trust people that are coming out," Dr Shah said.

"They don't know if we're going to give anaesthetic, whether we're going to take teeth out fully or whether we're going to break teeth.

"But once they got to know what we were doing, the number of people each day grew and grew and grew."

Dr Shah said he informally trained his children at home to act as his dental nurses so they could safely join him on the trip to east Africa.

The family treated about 200 patients on a daily basis, Dr Shah said

"We were inspired by quite a lot of the dentists we met," Dr Shah said, adding some were in their 60s.

"It was lovely because you get to meet very similar, like-minded people and they had such a great time," he said.