Your Safety is our Priority First and Foremost.

At Pembroke Dental our concerns are your health, safety and wellbeing. With the advent of COVID-19 and the new challenges in today’s world we want to assure our patients that we are extremely mindful that people may need reassurance about resuming routine dental treatment.

We are taking every measure to prepare the absolute safest environment for you. Our efforts have always been to provide the very highest level of dental care available. Over the last number of weeks, we have been researching and implementing evidence-based approaches to ensure the safest possible treatment setting for our patients.

We want to update you on our new policies and protocols designed to keep you safe and comfortable in our Practice as the world continues to battle the COVID-19 pandemic. Our focus during the recent closure has been to enhance our already stringent infection control and safety procedures to not only comply with but exceed directives and guidelines created by the government, HSE and Irish Dental Council.

Pembroke Dental has elected to go above and beyond the current guidelines to create a whole new treatment environment in our practice, so that we keep everyone as protected as possible.

You will notice several changes when you attend, all focused on increasing everyone’s personal safety:

• Our treatment team will be wearing extensive personal protective equipment (PPE), with additional head and body coverings.
• We have hand sanitizer that we will ask you to use when you enter the building. You will also find some in the reception area and other places in the surgery for you to use as needed.
• To minimize your time in the Practice, our staff will communicate with you in advance of your appointment to conduct general health screening (the same questions will be asked again at your appointment).
• We will ask you to remotely update your medical history and other required paperwork online before your actual appointment, again to minimize interactions while in the Practice. We have introduced an online platform on our website where you can book an appointment and also fill in our patient registration documents in the comfort of your own home before attending the surgery, you can find it here.
• We will ask you to please bring a mask if possible, to your dental appointment. This is not an essential requirement though.
• To keep you better informed, we ask that all patients sign up for text and email notifications as part of our virtual waiting room procedures, again to minimize your wait time in the reception area of the office.
• To protect you and your fellow patients we will kindly request that all patients come unaccompanied to their appointments unless there is an expressed need for an aide or other companion that has been approved in advance. We would ask that minors would only be accompanied by one parent/guardian.
• In order to maintain safe social distance practices, we will notify you when we are ready for you to come up to the Practice. We will complete the screening questions again and take your temperature.
• e have hand sanitizer for use on entry and throughout the Practice.
• We have designed patient flow to allow for physical distancing between patients. This will result in fewer appointment times available per day, as well as staggered & lengthened appointments.
• Longer appointments will allow for more treatments to be carried out per session. This is to reduce the overall number of appointments required to complete your treatment plan and decrease your overall number of visits to the Practice.
• We will rotate our surgeries to allow standing time between appointments for aerosol dissipation.
• We are increasing our ratio of dental assistants to dentists from 1:1 to 1.5:1, to allow for the longer turnaround time now required between appointments.
• We will continue to disinfect surgeries as usual and have also introduced a new disinfection regimen which utilizes a non-hazardous, eco-friendly, antiviral, electrolyzed water solution used as a fog to eliminate airborne contaminates. The solution breaks down into salt water after use and poses no environmental or personal risk.
• We have new high-volume suction systems to aid in elimination of aerosols generated through dental procedures.
• For our patients who fall into high risk categories, we will ask that you attend our surgery at the first appointment of the day, when we know there will be little or no waiting time and our surgeries are least busy.

As our community navigates this “new normal”, accommodating your needs while maintaining a safe environment will continue to be top priority at Pembroke Dental.

Please contact our patient care team if you need any clarifications or assistance.

We very much look forward to seeing you again soon,

The Pembroke Dental Team.