An uncertain future for small business owner

by Fiona Campbell

Like many businesses, Julie Gorman had to close her dental cleaning office because of COVID-19. North Durham Dental Hygiene is not considered an essential business in Ontario because no special dental work or surgeries can be done in their office.

Gorman works there on her own as a dental hygienist offering cleanings, check-ups, and teeth whitening. She also works at another office. I talked to her over the phone to see what the future of her business looks like.

How often did you work before?

My office is my own. So, that place I would probably work three to five days a week. It just depended on how busy I was. And then the other office, I would work two days a week. The other office was with a general dentist.

When did you have to close your practice? And what was the process of closing it like?

I closed the clinic probably a little bit sooner than what the government and like what the provincial government has stated because I knew of the risk already. When they had been talking about, you know, aerosols in the air and that we create aerosols, I knew that our job was very high risk. So, I didn't want to take that chance. I actually probably closed, I would say, I think March 7 was my last day. And then the offices closed, probably, I think the following week, like maybe we closed the 20th of March. But I didn't work. I didn't actually work because technically, I was supposed to be on holidays. So, I actually haven't been working since March 8.

In terms of telling your patients, did you have to call and cancel appointments, just to say that they're on hold until further notice?

Yeah, so I just actually really called them and just said, you know, we're going to have to reschedule another date, but we have no idea when we are going to be able to open safely. So actually, how I did that, too, is that just to keep track of everybody, I would actually keep them in the schedule. So then that way when it comes time that I can reopen, then I will just call them and get them in again.

What do you think the future of your business looks like?

Well, I think we're going to be reopening before the pandemic’s over. I think that like Saskatchewan and B.C. are opening on Monday (May 11). So, it's a little bit of a gray area because you know, they've kind of said that you can practice but you cannot be generating any aerosols so that means no polishing, no high-speed handpieces, you know, keeping it actually as low as possible, but what's going to have to happen is there's going to actually have to be construction being done at clinics and offices to make sure that you know, each room is closed off.

They haven't said anything about having a system where they have like an air purifier system. But you know, if you're generating aerosols, then you know, you have the chance of spreading the disease because it stays in the air. They're not really 100 per cent sure how long it's, you know, it's contagious or transmittable through the air because you need quite a bit of the virus to actually contract the virus. So, again, it's just that you would kind of be working on patients as if they all have COVID just to be safe. So, I think they're doing it right now in Ontario is just emergencies for particular offices if they have the proper PPE, but which most dental supply companies are not even actually sending to dental offices because they want to keep them for the hospitals. So, you know, I still think it's, it's up in the air. I think we're just going to have to wait and see what happens.