Free dental clinic held at Tingley Coliseum

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – A free dental clinic at Tingley Coliseum will offer cleanings, fillings, extractions and simple root canals to an expected 1,000 to 1,200 patients.

The New Mexico Mission of Mercy event began Friday morning and will continue Saturday at Tingley Coliseum at the New Mexico State Fairgrounds. Doors open at 5:15 a.m. both days, and patients do not need insurance or an appointment.

Volunteers brought in 100 dental chairs and other equipment to turn the coliseum into a temporary clinic. Organizers said people should expect to wait in line, and a long line had already formed outside Friday morning.

“The mouth is the door to the body. If there are problems with your mouth, that could lead to problems with your cardiac system, your heart, other parts of your body, and it just really kind of creates a whole series of issues,” an organizer said.

“There’s a reason you’re supposed to see a dentist every six months. It causes people to miss work. It causes people to miss school. There are people in the community that go years with that kind of pain and that kind of struggle,” the organizer said.

New Mexico health data shows only 60% of adults visited a dentist in the past year. Federal data shows 994,000 New Mexicans live in dentist shortage areas.

The New Mexico Dental Association organizes the event. Since 2010, it has helped more than 12,000 patients and donated more than $10 million in dental care.

“We really try to do as much as we can for each person. A lot of people come through and they might have more than one, two, three, four different things going on. So what we’ll do is prioritize the most important ones,” an organizer said.

Drivers can enter through Gate 3 at San Pedro and Copper, and parking opens at 4:30 a.m. Walk-ins can use Gate 4 on San Pedro. Parking is free and the event is first come, first serve.

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