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COVID-19 AND THE DENTAL LABORATORY PROFESSION AND INDUSTRY By David Smith
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ast week I wrote an article for the DLA about my thoughts on the effects on this pandemic on our profession and industry. I asked for comments from some of the social media sites for experience from other technicians.
this was possibly intentional, it is more likely we were simply overlooked and even if a plan was considered it would be too difficult to implement. If there is any disappointment, it is dentists who did not think to mention that a part of their team was missing.
Their struggle to survive, re-group and protect jobs and businesses made me want to include more of their experiences for this piece in the Dental Technician magazine.
So, we are left to the mercy of NHS plans for safe dentistry in each of the UK
I remember watching the Steven Soderbergh film ‘Contagion’ some time ago, a very accurate reflection of an epidemic, so similar to what we are now experiencing, with the line “No one would have believed a tiny living piece of protein could inflict so much damage upon our way of life, our health, our economy; so small 1 million viruses would fit into a full stop.” Prophetic!
Most dentists are not NHS staff, but independent contractors. NHS will continue to pay dentists even where it is not possible to provide normal service.
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The first thing I always forget is how many laboratories employ family members. Their plight affects whole families.
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I am not going to pretend that the effect on us, dental technology, is no greater than the effects on everyone else, but if we can understand why it is affecting us in this way and why it is taking so long for our industry to return to a level of work that makes us less vulnerable and more sustainable, we can begin to make plans to try and survive, as intact as possible with the least amount of financial and employment harm. Many of you wrote to me explaining your strategies for survival, the effect on your business and employees, and mixed views on our future; I shall attempt to include these. Let us start from our perineal problem. We are invisible. Often it suits us to be so, in this case, it does not. While government was planning to protect vital business within healthcare, because they did not have sight of us we were not included in any planning. While they were planning with NHS dentists to ensure they were protected whilst Covid made normal work behaviour impossible, the health department and treasury ignored us and the effects on us in any of these schemes. I know we will think
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countries and private work, braved by dentists, trying to offer a safe private service to patients, which is economically viable for all concerned.
www.dentaltechnician.org.uk
