Our community has been through a lot over the last few months, and all of us are looking forward to resuming our normal habits and routines. While many things have changed, one thing has remained the same: our commitment to your health and safety.

Infection control has always been a top priority for our practice and you may have seen this during your visits to our office. Our infection control processes are made so that when you receive care, it’s both safe and comfortable. We want to tell you about the infection control procedures we follow in our practice to keep patients and staff safe.

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Our office follows infection control recommendations made by the BC Centre for Disease Control, Canadian Dental Association (CDA) and the College of Dental Surgeons of BC (CDSBC). We follow the activities of these agencies so that we are up-to-date on any new rulings or guidance that may be issued. We do this to make sure that our infection control procedures are current and adhere to each agencies’ recommendations.

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You may see some changes when it is time for your next appointment. We made these changes to help protect our patients and staff.  For example:

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• Our office will communicate with you beforehand to ask some screening questions. You’ll be asked those same questions again when you are in the office and will be required to sign a consent form confirming your answers to be true to the best of your knowledge.

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• We will ask you to wash your hands when you enter the office, and we will have hand sanitizer available for your use in the reception area as needed.

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• We ask that you minimize the number of personal items that you bring with you to your appointment.

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• You will see that our waiting room will no longer offer magazines, newspapers or self-serve water since these items are difficult to disinfect.  Please feel free to ask one of the staff if you would like some water and they will be happy to provide a cup.

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• Appointments will be managed to allow for social distancing between patients. That might mean that you’re offered fewer options for scheduling your appointment.

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• We will do our best to allow greater time between patients to reduce waiting times for you, as well as to reduce the number of patients in the reception area at any one time.  To help facilitate this, we request that unless it’s mandatory, that you please come alone to your appointments.

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As you can imagine, we have quite a backlog of patients waiting for appointments so we ask for your patience while we work hard to accommodate all of you over the next several months.  We will do our best to get everyone back on track as quickly as the schedule allows. 

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If you are considered to be in a high risk category (includes those with pre-existing conditions such as serious respiratory disease, serious heart conditions, immunocompromised conditions, severe obesity, diabetes, chronic kidney disease or those undergoing dialysis, and liver disease; pregnant patients and patients who are 70 years and over) it is recommended that you postpone any non-urgent dental care.

 

Lastly, you will notice changes to the appearance of both the office and staff.  Clinical staff will be wearing increased Personal Protective Equipment and all staff may be wearing masks, which may appear overwhelming to some of you.  Please don’t be alarmed by our new appearance as we are following the guidelines put forth by our governing bodies to ensure the health and safety of you, our valued patients, and ourselves.  You may not be able to see our smiling faces like you once could, but we are the same friendly, caring people we always have been!

We look forward to seeing you again and are happy to answer any questions you may have about the steps we take to keep you, and every patient, safe in our practice. 

 

Thank you for being our patient. We value your trust and loyalty and look forward to welcoming back our patients, neighbours and friends.

 

Sincerely,

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Dr. Zahra Rashid

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