For years, residents of Claveria, Masbate, on Burias Island, had grown accustomed to a difficult reality: getting dental care often meant leaving the island.

The community had been without a practicing dentist for about a decade after the last dentist serving the area retired.

Seeking treatment elsewhere was possible, but for many residents, it meant more than simply making an appointment. Travel involved transportation costs, time away from work or school and, for those coming from farther areas, additional expenses for accommodation.

Some patients eventually chose to live with their dental problems rather than make the trip.

“Tinitiis na lang po namin kaysa bumiyahe,” some residents told Dr. Jana Jane Mahinay.

It was not necessarily that they did not want dental care. For some, access itself had become the problem.

Mahinay, a licensed dentist who graduated from Ago Medical and Educational Center in 2024, knew the community well. She was born in Claveria but left with her family at a young age in search of educational opportunities that were not available on the island.

Years later, she returned—not simply as someone coming home, but as a dentist who had begun to recognize an unmet need in the community.

One patient was particularly direct.

“Doon ka na lang sa lugar namin, Doc, mag-practice. Wala po kasing dentist doon.”

The statement stayed with her.

Claveria had indeed gone years without a practicing dentist, leaving residents with limited options for routine and preventive care.

The Rural Health Unit eventually offered Mahinay an opportunity to serve as the community’s dentist, potentially restoring regular dental services after years without one.

But she declined.

It was not because she did not want to serve. Rather, she wanted to provide more comprehensive care.

Services at the RHU were primarily focused on extractions. Mahinay wanted patients to have access not only to tooth removal but also to fillings and other procedures that could help preserve and restore their teeth.

That decision meant taking a more difficult path.

Instead of simply accepting a position, Mahinay decided to establish a private dental clinic of her own.

On 17 September 2025, she opened her clinic in Claveria.

Building it was far from simple.

A dental clinic requires equipment that cannot simply be purchased and carried to an island like ordinary supplies. Dental chairs, instruments, machines and other materials had to be transported to the community, adding logistical challenges and costs to an already ambitious undertaking.

Mahinay pushed through.

The result, she said, was the first state-of-the-art private dental clinic in the area.

But for Mahinay, the significance of the clinic lies less in the equipment than in what it makes possible.

She wanted residents of Claveria to have access to modern, comprehensive dental care without having to leave the island simply because they lived far from the city.

Her philosophy is straightforward: Being an islander should never mean receiving a lower standard of care.

The distance between Claveria and the city may be measured in hours of travel, but Mahinay does not believe that distance should determine the quality of healthcare a patient receives.

“They may be islanders, but they deserve the same quality of dental care that people in the city have access to,” she said.

That belief also explains why she maintains a practice in the city while continuing to operate the clinic in Claveria.

The arrangement is demanding. Reaching the island can take several hours by land and sea, while transporting equipment and supplies presents challenges that city-based practices do not face.

Still, Mahinay continues to make the trip.

Her partner, Dr. Chino, also a dentist, supports her in maintaining the island practice and helps provide dental services when Mahinay is unavailable.

Their involvement allows the clinic to continue serving patients while Mahinay fulfills her professional commitments in the city.

For Mahinay, however, the story is not simply about opening a business in her hometown.

It is about responding to a need she saw among people she wanted to serve.

Some patients had told her about the lengths they had to go through to obtain dental care. Others had chosen to tolerate pain or dental problems because traveling elsewhere was too inconvenient or expensive.

Those stories made the need difficult to ignore.

The clinic therefore became more than a place where teeth are extracted. It became a place where patients could seek preventive, restorative and comprehensive dental care closer to home.

That distinction matters in communities where geography can determine access to healthcare.

The question is not merely whether a service exists somewhere. It is whether people can realistically reach it.

Mahinay’s decision was an attempt to close that gap.

She could have built her career entirely in the city. She could have accepted the RHU position and provided the services available through the public system.

Instead, she chose to invest her own time and resources in building a private practice on an island.

It was the harder choice, but it also allowed her to pursue the kind of dentistry she wanted to practice.

There is something deeply personal about that decision.

Mahinay had left Claveria as a child because she needed to go elsewhere to obtain the education that would eventually make her a dentist.

Now, she was bringing that education home.

The community that once could not provide the educational opportunities she needed had become the community where she wanted to provide better access to dental care.

Her return was not simply about nostalgia. It was about responsibility.

Mahinay’s story is ultimately not just about a young dentist who went home. It is about a professional who saw a need in the place where she came from and decided that fewer resources, geographic isolation and hours of travel should not mean accepting less.

The dental chair had to be transported across the water. Equipment had to be brought in. The clinic had to be built. Patients had to be shown that comprehensive dental care could now be found closer to home.

All of it required a deliberate choice.

Mahinay made that choice.

She came home not because there were no opportunities elsewhere, but because she saw an opportunity to create something the community did not yet have at the level she envisioned: a clinic, a service and, more importantly, a standard of care she believes her fellow islanders deserve.

In the end, what Mahinay brought back to Claveria was more than a dental chair or modern equipment.

It was the conviction that quality healthcare should not be limited by geography—and that living on an island should never mean having to settle for less.