Forum Topic

Local Dentist Designs PPE That Would Enable Practices To Begin Operating Again

My friend has an infected root canal. I don't know whether he is still surviving with pain killers or whether he has found an emergency NHS dentist willing to treat him in an Urgent Dental Centre. The British Dental Association do have recommended Personal Protective Equipment. See this photo from the BDA website: https://bda.org/news-centre/blog/Pages/Coronavirus--we-must-not-put-dentists-at-risk-at-Urgent-Dental-Care-Centres-.aspxThe PPE includes visor, PF3 mask, hair covering, ear covering, gown, apron and gloves.  This is normal protection in a high infection area.

Una-Jane Winfield ● 2370d5 Comments

How do you stop the patient infecting the dental room for the next patient? I am no expert but all emergency dentistry would surely be  aerosol generating procedures.Ok for the dentist to be PPE protected but what about the room,the chair,the patient and the next patient. You would have to do a thorough clean of room and the dentist would have to change, wash and put on new PPE for next patient. Unless your a dentist and can explain how it would work.

Julian Pavey ● 2369d

I am not a dentist.I agree that the chair would have to be covered with a disposable paper covering, like in a doctor's surgery.Please remember that the incidence of Covid-19 is minute:  216,526 confirmed cases in the UK population of 65 millions is just 0.3 per cent (Johns Hodpkins University https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6). And this figure includes mostly non-life threatening cases. (1) The media and (2) the need not to overwhelm the NHS - because we have so few hospital beds - have led to fear on a scale I have not seen since the 1970s and the three day week, when the UK was the "sick man of Europe".... which it is again in a different sense!

Una-Jane Winfield ● 2369d

"Please remember that the incidence of Covid-19 is minute:  216,526 confirmed cases in the UK population of 65 millions is just 0.3 per cent (Johns Hodpkins University" On that basis ive left this thread.

Julian Pavey ● 2369d

If the dentists surgeries are only used for emergencies, would this allow for time to clean and then for the virus to naturally leave the room too.  No idea if this is possible but it was my first thought assuming dentists surgeries are completely empty at the moment ?

Maggie Dodge ● 2369d

I think that you have misunderstood me.  0.3 per cent of the population have contracted Covid-19,an  infectious disease which is for most of them relatively harmless in the long term. Within this group the number of deaths, 31,662, is 0.05% of the population.  People fall ill and die all the time, and the risks get higher as they get older. If it wasn't Covid-19 it would be something else. "Life is a risky condition" Read MD (Dr Phil Hammond) in Private Eye.

Una-Jane Winfield ● 2369d