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SIP x Smile Again: Hong Kong's First Barrier-Free Dental Clinic for Cancer Patients
- Mar 24
- 4 min read
A new social enterprise initiative is reshaping dental care in Hong Kong. The Smile Again Dental Centre is the city’s first barrier-free clinic designed for cancer patients, wheelchair users, and children with special educational needs (SEN).
Backed by a HK$1 million loan from Social Impact Partners (SIP), the centre addresses a critical gap in Hong Kong’s overwhelmingly private dental sector.
When people think about cancer treatment, chemotherapy and radiation usually come to mind. Dental care, however, is often overlooked. Yet for head and neck cancer patients, untreated oral health issues can delay life-saving treatment or lead to debilitating side effects long after recovery.
In Hong Kong, where the dental services are dominated by private providers, accessing specialised care is a steep hurdle for vulnerable groups. Out of roughly 30 non-profit dental organisations in the city, very few have the expertise or physical facilities to accommodate cancer survivors, wheelchair users, or children with special educational needs (SEN).
A local social enterprise is trying to change that. Cancer Support Society (CSS), co-founded by dentist Dr. Tom Ho and social worker Mark Cheung, recently opened the Smile Again Dental Centre, a barrier-free facility designed specifically for these overlooked communities.
The initiative recently received a major push: a HK$1 million interest-bearing loan from Hong Kong-based charity Social Impact Partners (SIP).
The hidden cost of treatment
The link between cancer and oral health is critical but poorly understood by the public. Patients undergoing radiotherapy for head and neck cancers often suffer from severe dry mouth, jaw stiffness and accelerated tooth decay.
If these issues are not managed before cancer treatment begins, doctors may have to delay radiotherapy. Furthermore, untreated oral wounds can allow bacteria to enter the bloodstream, causing chronic inflammation that taxes an already weakened immune system.
Dr. Ho, who serves as the director of CSS, recalled a tongue cancer survivor who visited the clinic years after completing radiotherapy. The patient's teeth had severely deteriorated.
"I didn't know where to go to find someone to help," the patient told Dr. Ho.
It is exactly this kind of navigation barrier that the new clinic aims to dismantle. Unlike traditional clinics, Smile Again’s layout is purpose-built for wheelchair users, eliminating the physical strain of transferring patients into standard dental chairs.
More than just a clinic: What Smile Again Does Differently
The HK$1 million from SIP covers the clinic's fit-out, specialist equipment and the expansion of outreach programmes. The project is also co-funded by the government's Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Fund (SIE Fund), the Jing Yuan Charity Foundation, and The Koo’s Giving Charitable Foundation.
Before committing the funds, SIP brought in its pro-bono partners to conduct rigorous due diligence, including a legal review by Milbank and a financial assessment by Grant Thornton. But the support extends beyond capital.
"Besides the money, they gave us legal advice, financial advice, marketing advice—whatever we needed, they had it," Cheung said.
CSS’s "Smile with Teeth" programme expects to serve nearly 2,900 cancer patients, disabled individuals and SEN children with direct dental treatment, while reaching over 1,500 people through oral hygiene workshops. By pairing dental care with social work, the clinic ensures patients are supported throughout their entire rehabilitation journey.
For SIP, the investment aligns with a broader mission to advance health equity in the city. "By combining professional expertise with deep community insight, CSS is addressing a critical service gap," said Josephine Price, chair of SIP. "This investment helps build sustainable capacity and demonstrates how social innovation can advance health equity".
Walking Alongside Patients
Mark Cheung, executive director of Smile Again, has seen the consequences of this service gap up close. That kind of navigational barrier that he has seen in action may be harder to see than a broken wheelchair ramp or an unaffordable bill, but it is no less real. Smile Again's model is built around dismantling it — combining dental and social work expertise so that patients are not only treated in the clinic, but guided and supported across the full length of their recovery.
A HK$1 Million Commitment
In 2025, SIP provided a HK$1 million interest-bearing loan to support Smile Again's expansion — funding the fit-out of the accessible dental centre, specialist equipment, and the scaling of outreach and education programmes across Hong Kong. SIP chairperson Josephine Price attended the clinic's grand opening, a gesture that reflects something more than a funder-grantee relationship.
The backing goes beyond the loan itself. Through its network of pro-bono professionals, SIP has brought in legal counsel from Milbank, financial advisory from Grant Thornton, and management evaluation from ALS International — giving Smile Again the kind of institutional support that most small social enterprises have to do without.
Smiles Worth Protecting
Cancer patients, survivors, people with disabilities, and SEN children are not a small or marginal group in Hong Kong. They are a large constituency for whom reliable access to specialist dental care has, for too long, been more aspiration than reality. Smile Again is chipping away at that, patient by patient. SIP's involvement is a bet that what this team has built is worth scaling — and that the conviction driving it, that everyone deserves a fighting chance at a decent smile, is one worth backing.
Please see our social impact story video with Smile Again for more details:
Short video: https://youtu.be/T87MAsyiNCc
Long video：https://youtu.be/s3dgGtT8iUI
The article is reviewed by LBS Communications Consulting Ltd.
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