Virginia Dental Office to Donate PPE to Hospitals Amid Shortage

Due to the Coronavirus crisis spread throughout the world, there is an acute shortage of personal protective equipments for the healthcare workers who are working tirelessly to treat the infected patients. With this shortage being felt in Virginia as well, one local dental office decided to step up and help in providing critical protective equipments. COVID-19 being a highly contagious condition, the requirement of personal protection for the frontlines workers is all time high. Commonwealth Dentistry decided to offer a helping hand to the frontline professionals as the demand for mask, gloves and gowns started to grow louder. "When these health care workers don’t have the PPE they need, they’re literally putting their lives on the line,” McKenzie Woodard, a partner at Commonwealth Dentistry, said Monday. They created a Facebook page where dental offices can go to link with the medical facilities and find out what they need. As all dental offices have limited their care to emergency procedures only, Woodard thought to call all dental offices to donate the PPE that they are not able to use at present. “Last week we really started reaching out to hospitals directly and trying to find out how we could get our additional PPE into the hands of the hospitals that need it,” she said. “Everyone has to do everything they can, no matter how minimal it may seem to try to help alleviate the issue.” Essential critical supplies like 500 masks, 1,500 gloves and a large dispenser of sanitizer has been donated from her office to Johnston-Willis Hospital, Chippenham Hospital and a long-term care facility in Fork-Union. The objective of this initiative is to fill up the storage unit so that the frontline doctors and nurses don't have to risk their own lives while saving others. Source: 8news

For current risk-based aerosol and infection-control context, see Dental Aerosols and Infection Control: Clinical Guide.

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