A nonprofit dental clinic that opened in Belfast this spring to make dental care more widely available has temporarily closed.
Seaport Dental Center, which is owned and operated by Penobscot Community Health Care, hopes to resume service in about a month, the not-for-profit healthcare agency posted Friday morning on Facebook.
“We anticipate resuming limited dental services two Fridays per month beginning in late October or early November, once provider scheduling is finalized,” the post said. “This limited schedule is expected to continue through spring 2027 as we continue recruitment efforts.”
The temporary closure of the clinic is the latest hurdle confronting PCHC, which is facing a financial crisis that agency officials say could result in it having to declare bankruptcy.
The crisis has resulted in planned layoffs amid the pending closure of an adult wellness clinic in Bangor, and has been complicated by a decision by Bangor officials to exercise the city’s right of first refusal on a Maine Avenue property that PCHC had been hoping to sell quickly to a private healthcare provider.
Asked Friday to elaborate on the reasons for the temporary closure of the Belfast dental clinic, PCHC President and CEO Lori Dwyer said only that it “is a temporary closure driven by hiring challenges.”
She declined further comment.
PCHC officials said in May, when the clinic opened, that they hoped to address a shortage of dental care services in the Belfast area. Waldo County has just one dentist per nearly 6,000 residents — about half as many as the state average, state statistics show.
“It’s pretty startling how poor oral health care is in the state,” Dwyer said at the time.
The clinic is not yet scheduling appointments for its anticipated reopening, the agency’s Facebook post said. Patients already on the clinic’s waitlist will be able to schedule appointments. New patients are not being accepted for the time being.
Anyone needing urgent dental care should call PCHC’s Bangor clinic at 207-992-2152 to schedule an emergency visit.
