Visiting dentist to hold five-day clinic in Nondalton

A dentist will be in Nondalton for five days starting Monday, one of the periodic visits that stand in for a permanent dental practice in the villages around Iliamna Lake.

A dental hygienist is scheduled in Tyonek the same week, and a physician in Akutan. In Tyonek, Southcentral Foundation says dental providers come twice a year, and primary care once every two months.

That pattern is why Alaska's tribal health system built its own alternative. A 2011 study in the American Journal of Public Health found that depending on traveling dentists left many villages without continuity of care, and Alaska tribal health organizations responded by adopting the Dental Health Aide Therapist model, training mid-level practitioners who live in the region to do limited restorative, surgical and preventive work.

Nondalton is one of six villages around Iliamna Lake whose clinics run on one or two health aides. They feed into the regional health center at Iliamna, which has a two-chair dental suite.

The Nondalton clinic is open weekdays from 9 am to 3 pm, including through lunch, with an after-hours line for urgent care. Southcentral Foundation says it serves everyone regardless of Indian Health Service status, on a sliding fee scale based on household income and size.