The Maui Oral Health Center, which opened in 2002 and has served as a clinical and classroom site for the University of Hawaii Maui College Dental Assisting Program, has received an anonymous donation totaling $100,000 from a local foundation for the purchase of new dental chairs. The facility provides affordable and accessible oral and dental health care to low-income and uninsured families of Maui, serving an estimated 800 to 1,000 residents each month. When the facility opened ten years ago, a charitable donation of used equipment was obtained from local dentists. Now the aged equipment and updates in models have made maintenance and repair expensive and sometimes impossible. Administrators said the new chairs are key for the center in continuing to provide oral and dental health care services. The center is scheduled to move to a new site on the UH Maui College campus once the new science building has completed construction.
