To our Valued Patients,
We hope this letter finds you and your family in good health.
We thank you for your patience and understanding with our limited ability to provide dental services during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the start of Phase 2, British Columbia and our regulatory bodies have approved us to resume non-emergency dental services.
As such, as of May 25th, our office has started to provide limited dental services with a gradual return to “dental normalcy”.
Although our office has always utilized the highest standards exceeding both BCCDC and CDSBC guidelines, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are implementing the following additional protocols/instructions to enhance your safety:
- Pre-screening prior to appointments and again at the entrance to the office, on the day of your appointment.
- Please notify us upon your arrival to the building but stay in your vehicle and a staff member will then give you further instructions on how to proceed.
- Temperature checks at the beginning of your appointment.
- Maintain appropriate physical distancing (6 feet or 2 meters) and limit accompanying personnel (caregivers / parents / guardians) to a maximum of 1 person (only if needed). They should wait for you in their car or outside the building. If your accompaniment needs to join you at your appointment, they will also need to answer the pre-appointment screening questions.
- We have installed plexiglass barriers in the reception area and have also removed all non-essential items (i.e. magazines).
- Hand sanitizer stations are available throughout the office.
- You will be provided with an oral rinse before each appointment and asked to wash hands, prior to being seated.
- All staff are required to hand-wash or hand-sanitize before and after all appointments.
- All staff will undergo daily screening for COVID, along with twice daily temperature checks.
- We have installed enhanced air purification devices and aerosol capturing and decontaminating devices.
- We have implemented enhanced disinfection/decontamination protocols with specialized equipment.
- Enhanced personal protective equipment (this may include surgical gowns, face shields, scrub caps, and of course masks and gloves) are worn by our staff during all procedures.
- Increased “Tap” limits for all Visa/Interac payments to allow “contactless” exit from the office.
- An Interac eDeposit option has been added for convenient bill payment by email to info@mycoquitlamdentist.com
Some of these measures may change as we understand more about the novel coronavirus, but in the meantime, these protocols are based on the most current available information/guidelines from the College of Dental Surgeons of BC, BC Centre for Disease Control, Office of the Provincial Health Officer and WorkSafe BC.
Again, we thank you for patience with us, during this time and we look forward to seeing you again or meeting you for the first time as we implement the aforementioned strategies to help keep everyone safe.
Sincerely,
Austin Station Dental Team.