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By Ronald Quaroni

Dental Gaps

Prince Albert dentists restrict service

Mar 19, 2020 | 1:00 PM

Prince Albert dentists appear to be doing their part when it comes to social distancing.

After reaching out to several P.A. dental offices paNOW understands routine dental checks are not available, but offices remain open should patients require urgent care.

On Tuesday the College of Dental Surgeons of Saskatchewan sent out a communication advising dental offices to limit their services.

This included reducing or suspending elective and non-essential services.

Speaking at Wednesday’s provincial update on COVID-19 Saskatchewan’s Chief Medical Health Officer echoed the recommendation.

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“You have to think about what’s the risk to you, your patient [and] the people sitting in the waiting room,” Dr. Shaqib Shahab said. “Urgent care will obviously need to be provided but as community transmission picks up, [dentists] should probably start scaling back as much they can.”

Dr. Shahab noted during the press conference, COVID-19 is a virus that can be spread through contact of the nose, eyes and mouth and the dental profession deals closely with all those areas.

“Obviously dentists are professionals who have very high standards of infection control, the highest of all professionals. They are actively looking into how to provide urgent care, how can they space out their patients. They need to have the same controls that ER’s and physician offices have, someone should not come for a root canal if they are coughing,” Shahab said.

If you are sick and require an appointment Shahab recommended taking pain medication until you are well enough to receive emergency care.

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Ron.quaroni@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @RonaldQuaroni