Smile Clinic has realigned available services to provide emergency and essential dental care for patients with immediate health needs, including pain or infection. Smile Clinic is complying with all the Ministry of Health guidelines in the area of providing dental care.
With Slovakia responding to the current threat posed by the COVID-19 outbreak, we are reaching out to you to share some perspective on receiving dental care with Smile Clinic Slovakia. We are working hard to consider new information and to always operate in the best interest of our patients, our communities, and along with our fellow healthcare professionals. Our intention in writing is to provide some fact-based education on the scope of that care and the confidence that can come from that information.
On the spectrum of dental care, Smile Clinic Slovakia are dental clinics focused on implant-based solutions for tooth replacement. With over 100,000 procedures performed in our 15 years of healthcare operation, the network and its highly-trained practitioners are focused on the essential work of removing disease and decay, restoring dental function, and oftentimes, improving overall health. In this time of crisis, we are rapidly adapting our individual practices to focus on the specific needs of each community we serve, to follow all regulations and guidelines, and to focus only on what has been determined by the ministry of health to be urgent (essential), or in more restricted areas, emergency-only care. That is what we do.
As a team, Smile Clinic is comprised of almost 60 dental specialists—prosthodontists and oral surgeons—nurses, patient coordinators, drivers, dental technicians, IT, administration & cleaning staff, committed to doing what is best for our patients.
More important than who we are, however, is who we serve. 450,000 people in Slovakia – ~15% of the adult population—suffer with severe tooth loss and the clinical conditions that are often associated with it — decay, infection, significant pain, and related systemic health issues. For these patients, the choice to pursue treatment is often not an elective option, but rather an essential, and sometimes emergent, decision to remove infection, relieve pain, and restore health. During this time of crisis, we have reoriented our practices to screen for dental emergencies (active infection, abscesses, chronic pain), and have eliminated routine, non-essential services.
This leads us to why we have reopened our 2 locations in Bratislava & Piešťany after a period of closure when the COVID-19 was at its peak. Smile Clinic remains open to serve a patient population who critically needs us. One of the primary controllable contributors to Emergency Room visits is dental-related; removing options for those in need may unnecessarily divert them to the overburdened ERs dealing with the coronavirus. We take great precaution in providing a safe environment for treatment: above our normal standard of care, we have heightened our already robust cleanliness protocols and we strictly follow the ministry of health guidelines. You can learn more about the specific measures we are currently taking here:
We know that this may be an uneasy time for many, but along with our practitioners, suppliers, and the dental and medical professions, Smile Clinic is here to serve you now and in the future. We will continue to do so, in the safest and most responsible manner possible.