Hit BBC comedy My Family has supplied a new dental surgery in Bangladesh with the equipment they used on set for ten years. The programme – which starred Robert Lindsay and Zoe Wanamaker – centred around the Harper family, whose patriarch Ben was a dentist, it ended in 2011, after a decade on BBC one. For the duration of the series, the surgical equipment that made up the set for Dr Harper’s surgery was rented from UK-based company The Dental Directory, and was subsequently returned when the series concluded last year.
Around the same time as My Family was coming to an end, the Japanese Embassy in Bangladesh was hoping to provide the Aloshikha Maria Mother and Child Health Care Clinic with suitable equipment to get it up and running, but they lacked funding. There were more than a thousand children already enrolled at the Aloshikha centre, with almost a third of them suffering from tooth decay, and a tenth in constant pain from dental problems. When The Dental Directory received the barely -used equipment back from the BBC, they generously passed it on to the Dentaid foundation; a project set up to furnish two surgeries in Bangladesh. Thanks to twenty-three Lions Clubs (a world-wide charitable organisation), £3,500 was also raised to help purchase all the necessary tools to provide children in the area with the care they need.
Dentaid thanked it’s supporters at both The Dental Directory and the Lions Clubs.