Cara Fredrickson wears personal protective equipment while working at Chehalis Dental Care Thursday afternoon.
Lauren Kasparek talks about equipment they use on patients at Chehalis Dental Care Thursday afternoon.
Teeth are displayed above a monitor at Chehalis Dental Care Thursday afternoon.
Casey Dodd, left, Danielle Snodgrass, Cara Fredrickson, and Lauren Kasparek pose for a photo following their shift Thursday afternoon at Chehahlis Dental Care.
Danielle Snodgrass puts on a new faceshield she is required to wear when working with patients Thursday afternoon at Chehalis Dental Care
Dental offices were allowed by Gov. Jay Inslee to reopen to all patients, not just those with emergency dental needs, on Monday, May 18, and local dental offices have altered operations by screening each patient for COVID-19 symptoms before they enter the building.
Dr. Andrew Tang, a dentist at Olympic Dental and Denture Care in Centralia, said his dental office is abiding by all the guidelines put in place by the state as his office returns to providing services. He said the dental office has had a difficult time staying stocked on personal protective equipment.
“We actually had to search far and wide to get more PPE because when the pandemic hit, people started buying up masks and we were having a hard time just getting the normal equipment that we usually get,” he said.
Since the COVID-19 outbreak, Tang is wearing more layers of PPE and said patient scheduling must be staggered to maintain social distancing.
“Even before COVID-19, we are trained to be really careful and avoid cross-contamination and use personal protective equipment,” he said. “The way I see it now, we are still doing what we’re supposed to be doing. If you get too uptight you make mistakes so I just try to stay focused on the work.”
Susanna Montgomery, a dental assistant at Olympic Dental and Denture Care, said that she is not comfortable returning to work, but must in order to pay the bills.
“I’m seriously terrified — always worried about what I touched,” she said. “I’m double masking and we don’t have the proper PPE because we can’t get it and we’re going to run out of what we do have in a couple of days.”
Montgomery said that she has had pneumonia three times in her life, and now at 50 years old, is worried about being exposed to COVID-19 while working in the dental office. She said that many patients, especially those who are elderly, have called to cancel their appointments.
“It’s terrifying and I’m forced to go back to work because I’m considered an essential worker and so unemployment won’t work since I’ve been offered to go back to work. I have not been able to get appropriate testing except for paying for it on my own to get an antibody test,” she said.
Montgomery said that she has been receiving many calls from elderly patients asking to reschedule their appointment for a couple of months down the road. The dental office is also spacing out appointments in order to keep the number of people in the building low and to have time to thoroughly sterilize and clean before the next appointment.
Lauren Kasparek, a patient care coordinator at Chehalis Dental Care, said that she has rescheduled appointments for patients but not as many as she would have expected.
“We’re checking temperatures for all of our patients before they enter the building, everyone is waiting in their car in the parking lot now and checking in by phone. We have face shields, new PPE, plexiglass up at the front desk — a lot of changes now,” she said.
Kasparek said that Chehalis Dental Care has enough PPE, and although some items are back-ordered, they have the equipment that is necessary to operate. Unlike other dental offices that were open for emergency procedures, Chehalis Dental Care was completely closed due to the COVID-19 outbreak until May 18 and would refer patients with urgent needs to outside specialists for certain procedures or help them get antibiotics for infections.
“The only main concern I have right now is just my family at home. I have an 8-month-old so I got to have a little extra time with him which I’m grateful for but now when I get home I wash my hands immediately and change my clothes before I even pick him up and say ‘hi’ to him,” Kasparek said.
