Hello May!!!

It feels like a lifetime ago since the word “Coronavirus” first hit the news, just as we all wrapped up 2019 and were ringing in 2020 with high hopes for an epic new decade. I know we all looked towards the future with goals and dreams of a bigger and better decade, saying that 2020 will be our best one yet! Right???

Fast forward 5 months and our lives have been completely turned upside down. The past couple of weeks have been pretty challenging for us in the dental profession, with Level 3 Restrictions to our level of practice being imposed at the end of March. It forced many closures, stand downs and shut downs. Not really what we all envisioned when year began.

Last week, the restrictions were eased down to Level 2. I can understand that this is very confusing to many.

Given the underlying COVID-19 risks PLUS the social distancing rules we have all been doing our best to adhere to in the past couple of weeks (or is it months already?), the common question is:

Is it safe to go to the dentist during the COVID-19 crisis?

Let’s break this down.

As health care providers, dentists have the highest level of infection control in the country. The Australian Dental Association and the Dental Board have extremely strict hygiene and infection control guidelines that we must follow before we can even begin. This includes hand hygiene, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), sterilisation, cleaning and decontamination, environmental cleaning, proper disposal of sharps and contaminated waste, and procedure restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is our responsibility to ensure that we adhere to these standards and restrictions imposed upon us by our professional bodies and government health officials.

• Hand Hygiene: All dental professionals must maintain hand hygiene at all times, both before and after putting their gloves on. Hands are washed prior to gloving. Once the gloves are on, contact is limited to just the patient and the sterilised equipment.

• Personal Protective Equipment: PPEs are highly important in our practice including gloves, masks, eye protection, face shields, protective clothing such as scrubs and disposable gowns, head covers, protective footwear and shoe covers.

• Sterilisation of reusable tools: As much as possible, we use disposable tools and materials on our patients. Where tools are reusable, they are subjected to thorough sterilisation using pressure and steam (autoclave), are bagged and tracked with a barcode system that integrates into each patient’s file.

• Cleaning and decontamination: Before and after each consultation/procedure, our surgery rooms are thorough cleaned and decontaminated. All exposed surfaces are wiped down with detergent or chlorine solution after every patient.

• Environmental barriers: Areas that cannot be regularly washed or wiped with detergents are covered with disposable environmental barriers that are stripped and disposed of between each treatment. This includes the screens and buttons on the dental chair and handles.

• Additional infection control precautions: This includes patient screening for COVID-19 risk, pre-procedural mouthwash, booking schedule management, waiting room management, use of hand sanitisers before and after each appointment, glass screen barrier on reception counter, contactless payment processing, disposable pens, environmental cleaning of non-clinical areas and touch points after each patient. Magazines, books, toys and water dispenser have been removed from the waiting area to avoid cross-contamination.

• Procedure Restrictions: Specific guidelines were released by the Australian Dental Association (ADA) to direct dentists with the types of procedures that may be performed or deferred under each level of restriction. The services we offer at this time and our practice protocols will strictly follow these guidelines. The key principle under Level 2 Restrictions is the provision of treatments that are unlikely to generate aerosols.

We will expand on what these Level 2 Restrictions mean in the coming days, such as what types of procedures and services we can provide based on the understanding of COVID-19 risk and questions that have emerged in the past few months.

I hope this somehow helps you in understanding the infection control procedures that we have so that we can give you some peace of mind if you are wary of coming to the dentist. We take infection control very seriously at New Leaf Dentists. Though things are slowly easing up NSW, rest assured that we will continue to be vigilant in our commitment to maintaining a safe environment for our dentists, staff, patients and visitors.

If you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to connect with us. Call us on (02) 4367-6222 or send us a message on social media (if urgent) with your queries and we’ll do our best to help you.

Sincerely,

Dr Rouel Vergara DMD