Bennington Free Dental Clinic can be busy

BENNINGTON, VT – This Friday night, dozens of people will spend the night in a parking lot to get in line for free tooth extractions, as well as other health care services.

Remote Area Medical’s free two-day pop-up clinic — about six miles from the New York border — is open to anyone, not just Bennington residents.

In a sign of the urgent need for covered medical services, organizers are allowing people to begin lining up at Mount Anthony Union Middle School, 747 East Road, Bennington, at 11:59 p.m. Friday. The clinic will open at 6am on Saturday.

On Sunday, the clinic will be open for half a day, so it will not be able to receive as many patients. And people are invited to line up early.

“We typically have people spend the night in the parking lot to make sure they get a spot in line,” said the Remote Area Medical Volunteer Corps. representative Chris Cannon.

The clinic comes to Bennington after more than a year of work by Greater Bennington Community Services, a nonprofit that works with people living in or near poverty in Bennington County. While the group already offers a free medical clinic for uninsured adults on Thursday nights, it does not provide dental care.

RAM comes to locations across the country, but local hosts set up the location, organize volunteers and raise funds. It takes 12 to 18 months for a typical team to do the work to bring RAM to their community, Cannon said.

A Tennessee-based nonprofit, RAM runs clinics across the country, coordinating medical volunteers to see people for free.

About 9 million New Yorkers — or half the state’s population — are in a public health plan. Another 1 million state residents are uninsured. But only one in three dentists in the state participate in Medicaid, and of those who do, most are in New York, according to a 2022 study.

At the clinic this weekend, portable restrooms, including accessible restrooms, will be available in the parking lot. Patients are asked to bring their own food and water to prepare for a long wait.

Dentistry and vision care are so popular that patients at the clinic have to choose one service rather than both. All will also receive medical treatment.

Tooth extractions and fillings are among the most commonly requested services. Some patients say they haven’t seen a dentist in years because they don’t have insurance, Cannon said.

“We definitely see some pretty extreme cases sometimes,” he said.

Many people are in pain when they get in line and want that pain “taken care of” right away, he said. The clinic can do local numbing, but people should know that there is no sedation.

Typically, about 60 percent of the clinic’s work is dental services, he said. “That’s the biggest part of our operation,” Cannon said.

In addition to vision services, the clinic will also manufacture eyeglasses on site. Other services include dental x-rays and medical exams.

Patients do not need ID or health insurance cards. And there will be translators on site to help patients communicate with doctors.