I have been in many ways quite fortunate throughout this pandemic. I still have a job, I still have a home, I have avoided serious ill health, my family has largely avoided the worst of things although we are all feeling the effects of isolation and lockdown. I regularly count my blessings and keep my fingers crossed.
My job does bring me into regular contact with people who have not been so lucky. My discussions with them about what are so often truly dreadful experiences leave me deeply affected for some time, keeping a professional distance can be more than I can manage. Reaching out to people is what brings you into the work that we do, and there is a price to pay for that.
In recent weeks I have been talking with a lot of people, people who are deeply anxious, sometimes to the point of paralysis, about the difficulties they are facing with dentists. They are often in terrible pain but are either unable to access a dentist or are too frightened to do so. The distress they are experiencing is really hard to listen to.
I try to give reassurances about the safety of dental practices, and the deep cleaning that goes on between aerosol generating procedures, enhanced infection control, and the use of PPE. But for some the anxiety is so deeply ingrained that it is hard to shake, sensationalist reporting in the media has much to answer for.
The final straw for me were the calls I have taken from people who are immobile, often housebound, who have been isolated for a year, prisoners of their own physical or mental health conditions, and experiencing awful dental pain. They cannot get to surgeries or Urgent Dental Care Centres, so how are they to get the treatment they desperately need?
I hold Dentists in high regard. In my experience they are doing the best they can in near impossible conditions. The nature of their work puts them and their patients at even greater risk than normal from the virus, and the precautions they are obliged to take are essential even though it impacts on their ability to deliver a service. It is hard to think of an alternative.
The challenges of delivering a service in people’s own homes would be enormous, but is that a sufficient reason not to do it? I simply do not know the answer to that question.
My plea today is to ask those who commission and deliver dental care services to consider whether the services to people who are immobile, in vulnerable situations, or trapped by their own anxieties can be made better. I would be happy to contribute to those discussions.
Chris Bain 