04/28/2020
Update: We are working on getting all of necessary PPE (n95, gowns, face shields, etc) and will going above and beyond the current regulatory body recommendations, short of negative pressure rooms, to ensure the safest possible environment for treating our patients. We will update when we are back to treating patients at the office.
Below is a letter written by a colleague, which nicely sums up the current state of affairs. Stay safe everyone!
Shared with permission from authors Javier Victor Duran, DMD, and his wife Nicole Siddell-Duran, RDH. They encourage all dental professionals to share and send this letter to all who will listen (feel free to copy and paste.)
An Open Letter to the ADA, CDC, OSHA, and government officials:
We dental professionals, are writing to express our very real need for urgent guidance and help during the COVID-19 outbreak. Understandably our healthcare organizations, dental associations, and government have all called on us to make every effort to keep patients out of the ER. With good logic, we have been mandated to restrict our treatment to emergencies only. We have been required to tally our PPE, and urged to donate our surplus. Additionally, we have been asked to list our skills for use on the front line in combating this virus. All this we have done in the spirit of helping our fellow human, our medical colleagues, and our own altruistic desires as health care practitioners.
That being said it is clear that dental health is more than just alleviating acute pain. For years we have been educating our patients that our oral and systemic health are intimately related. From connections with diabetes, Alzheimer’s, prenatal birth weight, and more, our physician counterparts and patients were starting to perceive how oral health is essential. In the grips of a pandemic, it is perhaps a worthwhile reminder that historically until the advent of modern antibiotics, dental abscess was a
leading cause of death. At a time where we are being told about potential antibiotic shortages, where there is real concern of resistant bacteria and an opioid crisis, we cannot continue to simply throw prescriptions at people and hope for the best. Plainly put: we need to reopen our offices to care for our
patients.
However, we have some grave concerns. Multiple sources have stated that our profession is at the highest risk during this outbreak, higher even than respiratory therapists. This is due to the very nature of our work, which generates aerosols. While we have “recommendations” for PPE to protect the doctors and staff, we have no guidelines in regards to how to address these aerosols that can linger for up to three hours. Our dental offices are left scrambling for PPE, as our reputable suppliers have none to offer and we have donated much of what we had. We in the dental field are left talking amongst ourselves and brainstorming in the void of no guidance and limited help.
For many reasons, we are in a unique circumstance. We are predominately privately owned, but are depended on to serve the health of our public. Our work environment dictates that we cannot readily go back to work like many other businesses who can practice social distancing and proceed. We lack any clear guidelines despite being at higher risk than other fields; some of which have already been given definite instructions in how to safely reopen. We do not have access to the proper PPE, doctors are left scrambling to order from Amazon or to beg for a few masks from each other.
We are reasonable and highly educated people. We understand that in a worldwide pandemic our physicians and nurses at the front lines take precedence. If the reason we have not received guidance is because there has been insufficient time to develop it, or that it is simply not known, then we request that you state this. Should this be the case, then our profession needs specific financial help to ensure viability. We provide healthcare for our population, and unlike hospitals which have received federal and state funding, we are draining our own personal bank accounts and risking bankruptcy. We should not be left fighting for loans with fields that provide commercial services. We need real funds, real guidance, real assistance in procuring our PPE, and proper help in upgrading our operatories with whatever air filtration, purification devices or methods are determined to be effective for the safety of ourselves and our patients.
Thank you and we look forward to working together with you to help protect one another.
