AUBURN – An Auburn dental clinic that has treated about 1,000 of the area’s poor children will close its doors Tuesday.

Workers at the Western Maine Children’s Dental Center planned to pack files and box dental supplies after seeing their last patients on Tuesday morning. The reason: money.

“We were basically running at a deficit since day one,” dentist Dennis Wicks said.

The Augusta-based Maine Oral Health Solutions opened the clinic about a year ago, taking up space in a city-owned building at 15 South Main St. It’s aim was to tend to children in the Lewiston-Auburn area, subscribers to the state-run MaineCare insurance system.

Unfortunately, MaineCare failed to cover the bills entirely, typically leaving 20 to 30 percent of costs to be covered by other funding sources, Wicks said.

About two and a half months ago, the office cut its receptionist and left a part-time hygienist position unfilled. The savings wasn’t enough.

When the Maine Oral Health Solutions board of directors met in early April, they decided to close the Auburn clinic and shrink its Augusta offices.

“It’s not like one was doing rosy and the other was sinking,” Wicks said. “Everything was sinking, but this one was sinking faster.

Word reached the Auburn office about three weeks ago and staff began telling parents.

“This was ideal,” parent Charlene Libby of Mechanic Falls said Monday. “This was convenient, not only for me but for people in Minot, Poland and Lewiston-Auburn, too.”

And the care for her children – a daughter, 5, and a son, 10 – was first rate.

“I haven’t found any dentist as good as he is,” Libby said of Wicks. He found a way to comfort her daughter, though she had been frightened at first.

She groaned at the thought of finding a replacement. Instead, she planned to travel to Maine Oral Health Solutions’ Augusta office for treatment by Wicks, she said.

There are few options for people who rely on MaineCare for dental treatment. Locally, Community Dental in Lewiston also takes the insured patients.

Most private dentists take few if any MaineCare children, Libby said. Fewer take MaineCare adults.

“We would welcome them,” said Lisa Kavanaugh, Community Dental’s executive director. Her company works with a combination of insurances and a sliding scale of fees depending on income. And it takes both children and adults.

Libby said she has had to drive as far away as Bath to get dental help for her son. Care for herself has been more problematic.

“I haven’t had a cleaning since my son was born 10 years ago,” she said.

Wicks listened Monday as Libby talked about her challenge to give her kids good dental care. He could offer little advice.

“It’s a matter of trying to do the best we can,” he said. He seemed resigned to packing up and moving elsewhere.

On Monday, his diplomas and certifications sat in a pile, leaning against a wall where they’d been displayed. Though he maintains a small private practice, he works as a part-time dentist for several nonprofits, including the Job Corps in Bangor where he lives.

“It’s a risk you take when you work in this field,” Wicks said of the move. “You’re always skirting disaster.”

And he has learned to give up on finding a donor to make the money woes vanish.

“We’ve been hoping some philanthropist might step forward,” Wicks said. “None has so far.”