The Anstruther Rotary meeting, Monday 1st August, was entertained by club member and dental surgeon John O'Neil, speaking of the tribulations resulting from new regulation governing the sterilisation of dental instruments.
Visits to the dentist do not have great entertainment value for most of us - although things may well be different when seen from the other side of the drill! However John managed (dare we say) to inject! some humour into a serious topic. He explained that today instruments are typically cleaned after use by a two-stage process: firstly by high frequency vibration in an ultrasonic cleaning tank and then by sterilisation in an autoclave.
However, there are apparently concerns that microscopically small particles may enter the atmosphere from the ultrasonic machine - with the attendant possibility of patient infection. In what we think was a humorous aside, John admitted that there are risks to dental surgery - he had checked records of patients from 100 years ago and discovered that all had subsequently died!!
From 2013 new regulations will require all dental surgeries to employ a different cleaning method, with the ultrasonic process replaced with what John described as a 'super dishwasher'. The sting in the tail however is that 'dishwashing' and 'sterilisation' have to be carried out in separate rooms, well away from patients and with provisions aimed to have the rooms isolated from each other.
Here explained John is the rub. His existing surgery is housed in an historic building in an older part of Anstruther and of rather 'bijou' proportions. It is not possible to expand to create the extra room needed. And so a new surgery will be needed. Plans have been drawn up for a splendid new facility, able to fully satisfy new regulations and with more spacious and comfortable waiting rooms. Just what is needed for the 21st century.
The tale then darkened with references to planning processes, registries of land ownership and escalating costs. We were led into a web of uncertainty, of 'catch 22' negotiations and byzantine complexity. Without doubt the stuff of TV's 'Grand Designs' programme!
Ending on a more serious note we heard that such experiences are not uncommon; the unintended consequences of a change to regulations made for the very best of reasons. John noted that in Scotland worryingly high numbers of experienced dentists are retiring or giving up practice - and in some cases even seeing their businesses fail.
