COVID19: Dental work will include virus tariff

Going to the dentist will also be a painful experience for your finances after dentists said customers will be charged extra to cover the cost of safety measures required during the coronavirus pandemic.

Dentists say they will need to wear additional personal protective equipment and to disinfect the work area after every customer.

President of the Pancyprian Dentistry Association, Vrasidas Filipides, told CNA that charges will definitely increase.

For each client, he said, the extra charges will vary from €17-€30 while prices will go up not only for the equipment but also the procedure to disinfect the working area, according to the advice of the World Dental Federation and the Council of European Dentists.

Filipides said that since this procedure is time-consuming, a dentist that works eight hours per day will only be able to treat a maximum of eight patients.

He said that in Cyprus, dentistry is 90% available in the private sector.

Most of them remained open during the pandemic, treating only urgent cases. There are also some that remain closed.

The dentistry association, he said, was aware that personal protective equipment was hard to find in the early stages of the pandemic and they have not received any PPE from the government.

For this reason, the association’s members purchased whatever they could find at a high price so that they could be in a position to treat urgent cases.

Meanwhile, the government’s Dental Services told CNA that they have no problem and continue working in accordance with World Dental Federation advice.

Since March 9, when the first confirmed cases were made known, the Dental Services have served 450 patients.