RESTON, Va. — Some Virginia dental practices will reopen their doors to patients on Friday.
On Wednesday, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam announced the Commonwealth would allow its temporary ban on medical and dental elective procedures to expire after April 30.
Dental offices could only perform emergency procedures or surgeries prior to the ban’s implementation, according to the governor’s office.
Northam said Virginia’s dental facilities have been preparing for weeks to safely reopen.
“Our hospitals, our clinics, our dental offices, these are safe, clean places to go,” he said. “And, so while we have been through this pandemic, I want to encourage all Virginians that your healthcare is important.”
Dr. Wayne Myles will reopen his Reston-based practice, “Smiles by Myles," to all clients Monday.
He said his team held a meeting to get organized for the reopening Thursday.
“We did a thorough clean-down,” he said. “We cleared the office of any debris. It's clean and sterile. It's ready. We got our game plan together. We have our plastic shields. We're going to be ready.”
Myles’ practice plans to implement 18 different steps to ensure the safety of its patients and staff.
He says his practice will limit the number of patients it sees and conduct thermal scans to determine if clients have a fever.
Myles added will also wear plenty of personal protective equipment.
“We have N95 masks that the entire staff will be wearing,” he said. “We will wear a level three mask on top of that. We have disposable coats, head shields, and obviously gloves and protective eyewear and masks. So we'll be taking all precautions.”
Myles said some patients can also expect their appointments to be extended so they do not have come back to his offices multiple times to get more work done.
Northam said Virginia’s hospitals are not being overwhelmed by the coronavirus during his Thursday press conference.
Virginia Dental Association [VDA] President Dr. Elizabeth Reynolds said the current availability of PPE in the Commonwealth helped make Virginia’s health officials more comfortable about reopening dental practices.
She said the VDA initially wanted to preserve its PPE for its medical colleagues in hospitals so they would be protected while dealing with emergencies directly related to the coronavirus.
But, now, she says the time is right to reopen Virginia’s dental facilities.
“We all recognize the longer dental practices remain closed to preventative and non-emergent treatment, the more likely that our patients’ untreated dental diseases will progress, increasing the complexity and cost for treatment,” she said.
Reynolds said Virginia dentists are following the interim guidelines provided by the VDA, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Dental Association, and Virginia Department of Health on how to keep patients and dentists safe.
Myles said he and his staff are prepared to get back to work. He said his practices’ appointment schedule is filling up.
“During this whole period of time that we've been closed, I've been staying abreast on what’s going on,” he said. “What works, what doesn't work, what is necessary to stay safe, and I've taken all the steps and protocols that is required for us to keep our patients safe and to keep my staff safe and certainly to keep myself safe.”