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Two Santa Maria dentists are back from an humanitarian mission to Colombia and what surprised them the most is that some of the Colombians have similar, if not better, access to dental care than some of us here at home.

"There was a little bit of drug use and the complications from that, but overall it was a lot of the same stuff we see here," said Dr. Julia Lerch.

Those similarities also caught Dr. Sunny Fereshteh by surprise. "That was one of the saddest parts was realizing that they had some access versus many of our patients who don't accept for CHC," she said.

The dentists work for Community Health Centers of the Central Coast, which focuses on our local low income communities.

Most of the work done in Colombia was cleanings, extractions and fillings.

They also left the Colombians with toothbrushes, floss, toothpaste and follow up care with a dental school in Colombia.

The villages they visited also have help from three different organizations to get the needed dental care.

While the care may not be up to U.S. standards or scheduled regularly, "we were finding cleanings that were done five years ago, and then we go to clean and it looked like they had never been cleaned before," said Dr. Fereshteh, it made her realize there is a lot more work that needs to be done stateside.

"These people needed quite a bit of work, but so do our patients here in Santa Maria," said Dr. Fereshteh.

The doctors went on the mission with the u-s-c humanitarian club and served about 500 patients.

Click here to learn more about Community Health Centers of the Central Coast.