An Experience of Public Dental Care during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Reflection and Analysis.

Orsolya Nemeth,Fanni Simon,Mercedesz Orsos,Peter Gaal

doi:10.3390/ijerph18041915

Abstract

Since its emergence in China, the COVID-19 pandemic has become the number 1 health challenge in the world with all affected countries trying to learn from each other’s experiences. When it comes to health services, dental care does not seem to be a priority area, despite the fact that it is among the highest risk medical specialisations in terms of spreading the infection. Using the Department of Community Dentistry of Semmelweis University as a case study, the objective of this paper is to introduce and analyze the system and organizational level measures, which have been implemented in dental care in Hungary during the first months of the COVID-19 outbreak. The system level measures to promote social distancing, to reduce the use of health services and to protect high risk health professionals, together with the deployment of protective equipment and the reorganization of patient pathways at the organizational level proved to be effective in keeping the outbreak in control. There are two, less frequently mentioned ingredients of successful coping with the COVID-19 challenge. First, mental health support is at least as important as physical protection. Second, most of the interventions do not require big financial investments, but behavioural change, which in turn requires leadership and change management skills.

Highlights

The Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2) pandemic took the leaders of many countries all over the world by surprise, despite other similar epidemics of the past, which have served as a warning to prepare for the worst for only a handful of countries that had been hit by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East
We examine the rationale behind the reorganization of health service delivery, as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, introduce and analyze the already implemented measures in Hungary, focusing on dental care
The average number of patients admitted to our Department was around 300–350 persons per day

Summary

Introduction

After the initial period of confusion, blundering and even denial, governments have implemented unprecedented social distancing measures in a desperate attempt to slow down the spreading of the infection and “flatten the curve” [3]. Learning from the Italian example, the more fortunate countries of Europe have understood that apart from the implementation of strict social distancing measures, the key area of combating the epidemic is the reorganization of health service delivery to decrease avoidable mortality until we have a treatment of proven effectiveness, or an effective vaccine [6,7,8]. On March 11 the Hungarian Government declared a state of emergency [9], which was followed by a number of social distancing measures, including school closures, restrictions on occasions of gatherings, retail trade

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