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HEALTH: Dental assistant Adriana Martinez, newly hired by the Coastal Health Alliance, learns how to use equipment in the group’s van after it arrived in Point Reyes Station on Monday. The dental program follows up on a successful pilot program that ended months ago, and will start by treating low-income, uninsured and emergency patients.    David Briggs

A 39-foot van equipped to provide mobile dental service for the Coastal Health Alliance arrived in Point Reyes Station from Riverside on Monday, following months of delays. Stocked with two dental chairs, a waiting room and secured wireless Internet access for keeping records, the van is tentatively slated to hit the road the first week of March and will start offering dental care to Medi-Cal patients, uninsured patients and emergency cases up and down Marin’s coast, according to the alliance’s executive director, Steve Siegel. “Instead of just waiting for a flare-up and going to the emergency room, we’re going to take care of people on a routine basis and take steps to develop prevention,” he said. “We’re trying to bring oral health awareness about how to save your teeth.” (Mr. Siegal assured the Light that patients would not be treated while the van is in motion.) The van will replace a two-chair, two-day-per-week pilot dental program that ended in September. Since, then, the alliance has been losing revenue and, “holy mackerel, everybody’s been waiting for the van to arrive,” Mr. Siegel said. But many eager patients will have to wait for the large backlog to clear before they can see the dentist. Once the van gets in gear, however, Mr. Siegel and the alliance’s dental director, Mike Hsu, anticipate seeing around 12 patients a day, with the possibility of eventually travelling to local schools. “It’s going to be different, but it’s exciting,” said Dr. Hsu, a 10-year dental practitioner who joined the nonprofit in October. “There’s a lot of need in the area. We’re trying to help those people who are in need, and that was our intent in getting the van.” The van had been scheduled to arrive in early October, but was delayed several times due to minor hydraulics and parts issues.