May 12, 2020
Mayor London Breed
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Pl., Room 200
San Francisco, CA 94102
Dr. Grant Colfax,
Director of Health
101 Grove St.
San Francisco, CA 94102
Dr. Tomas Aragon
Health Officer
101 Grove St.
San Francisco, CA 94102
Dear Mayor Breed, Dr. Colfax and Dr. Aragon:
First, we want to thank you for your leadership in averting the worst of this crisis and working to ensure the health and safety of the San Francisco Community. We also write to you as small business owners and as healthcare providers who are struggling to provide patient care and at the same time, maintain the viability of our small businesses to sustain the health of our practices for future patients and for our dental teams.
As healthcare professionals, we were called upon to make every effort to keep patients out of emergency rooms. And with good logic, dentists were initially asked to restrict treatment to urgent and emergent care only. And finally, dentists were urged to donate their surplus PPE to hospitals, and they did so willingly. All this, San Francisco dentists have done in the spirit of helping our community, our medical colleagues, and because we are concerned health care professionals contributing to the greater good.
Now dentists, and the patients we serve, need help. By delaying routine care, San Francisco dentists are now seeing an increase in the number of patients needing urgent and emergent care. Delays in routine and preventative care have escalated to dental pain, gum infections, abscesses, and in some cases the need for root canals and extractions.
SFDS dentists are a very well-informed, science and evidence-based, group and dentistry has always been a leader in infection control. We have been following Centers for Disease Control, California Department of Public Health, American Dental Association, California Dental Association, and Occupational Safety and Health Administration recommendations and guidelines. And, as small business owners and employers, we are concerned about the access to care for all San Franciscans and for the survival of our practices.
The State, surrounding counties, and CDPH have allowed for routine and preventive dental services to resume. According to the CDC and the CDPH, no COVID-19 clusters have been linked to dental care during this pandemic.
Based on San Francisco’s Moratorium on Routine Medical Appointments (C19-08) and the most recent extension of the moratorium in the April 29
th
Shelter in Place Order, we have communicated to our members that they limit their care to urgent and emergent care only. However, we are confident that deferred and preventative dental care can now be safely resumed in San Francisco if the new CDPH guidelines released late last week are followed. We want to return to work as quickly as possible, and in the safest possible manner for all involved, including practitioners and patients alike.
Our request is two-fold, that San Francisco lift the moratorium on routine and elective dental care so that dentistry may provide medically necessary and preventive care for our patients and that dentistry be prioritized to receive access to PPE so that we can continue treating our patients.
Thank you and we look forward to working together with you to help protect one another.
Sincerely,
