McGill University's Faculty of Dentistry will continue to offer free dental services to those in need at Montreal’s Welcome Hall Mission after the two organizations signed a new agreement this week.

For six years the McGill’s Jim Lund Dental Clinic has offered free dental care to people and their families from the Welcome Hall Mission who can’t afford a visit a dentist, such as those working in insecure jobs or for low wages, seniors, refugees and recent immigrants.

Patient Oleg Chalyi came to Quebec from Ukraine two years ago. Although he works, he told CTV Montreal he doesn’t have enough money to see a dentist.

“It’s very expensive for me,” he said. “That’s why I decided to come to this clinic.”

The clinic is entirely funded through philanthropic donations and offers third and fourth year dentistry students practical experience.

“We’re doing exams, hygiene, restorative procedures, extractions, light periodontal gum procedures as well,” said Dr. Paul Sweet, the dentist who oversees the program. “We are trying to develop dentists who are a bit more empathetic, so we try to approach the patient more as a person than a case or file.”

Sweet told CTV Montreal that among the patients who have come through the doors, more and more are immigrants or refugees, some of whom haven’t had proper dental care in years.

“Some cultures don’t have the same philosophies or approaches that we do here in North America,” he said. “A lot of the cases they have had subpar or unregulated dental care in foreign countries.”

The new agreement between the groups, signed on World Oral Health Day, will extend this service for at least another five years.

"It is amazing to see how a good oral health can improve lives and allow people to obtain jobs so that they can provide for their families," Samuel Watts, CEO of Welcome Hall Mission, said in a statement.

With a report from CTV Montreal’s Caroline Van Vlaardingen