05/15/2020
Dear Patients and Friends,
We hope that you and your family are keeping safe and healthy during this unprecedented time. It's been already 2 months since we were told by our regulatory body (RCDSO) to stop providing regular treatment but to continue providing emergency/urgent care. As of today, unfortunately, we still don't have a precise date of when we will be allowed to resume elective treatment, like fillings, crowns and cleanings.
Yesterday, the Government of Ontario started lifting some restrictions, but unfortunately dental offices were not included in the group of services allowed to resume operations. Although we were not included in this phase of the re-opening plan, at least it gives us a signal that the worse is gone and soon we will be able to re-open as well!
What we can anticipate you is that our governing body, the Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario is working closely with Public Health officials and the Ontario Dental Association to create new policies and procedures that will ensure the safety of our patients and staff while providing dental care. Once these new guidelines are finalized, we will fully implement them in our office. It is our top priority to provide a safe work environment for our patients and staff.
We know that our "new normal" will be quite different from our "normal" 2 months ago. Our staff will be using more personal protection equipment, the operatory disinfection will follow new protocols to kill this new virus and the waiting room will likely not have many patients to in order to maintain social distancing. All these new measures will require lots of planning, training and adapting from our part so we kindly ask for your continuing understanding and patience while we adapt to what will be the "new normal".
Once we receive the go ahead to resume regular operations, we will give priority to those patients who already had appointments booked and also we will access the cases that are deemed more urgent. It may take another couple weeks or months until we can clear the back log of treatments that were cancelled during these past two months, so again, we will have to count with your patience and understanding in the weeks following the re-opening.
On a side note, I think that by now, most of you are aware that we are going through an expansion of our office, with a new area being built at the back of the existing building.
During the shutdown, the construction kept going (in a slower pace due to the pandemic constrains) and we expect that the new area will be open hopefully sometime in June. We are truly looking forward for this moment! Once this phase of construction is complete we will be able to offer our patients a fresh, more spacious and comfortable environment!
We will provide you with updates when we have more information about resuming operations.
Meanwhile, please keep safe, healthy, brush your teeth at least twice a day and floss regularly!
We hope to see you soon!
Best regards,
Dr. Liana Cardieri
