P.E.I. dental offices facing staffing issues, appointment backlogs

An Island-wide staffing shortage in dental clinics is causing a backlog of appointments, and it's forcing some patients on P.E.I. to wait months before receiving care.

"As with any part of health care, everybody's looking for somebody to help them out," saidDr. Brian Barrett,executive director of the Dental Association of P.E.I.

He said key positions such as dental assistants and hygienists are "vital" for offices to be able to performtheirfull range of functions.

But a lack of staffis leaving some dentists to do the work alone whichin turnimpacts patients whose appointmentsget cancelled or rescheduled.

Pandemic aftermath

Barrett said part of the problem has beenthe pandemicsince many dental assistants and hygienists have changed their hours to part-time, leavingclinics in a situation where more shifts are needed to fill the week.

He said another pandemic-related factor has been dealing with the fallout ofappointments that were missed when dentists had to closetheir practices.

"When things get backed up, it's just really hard to get caught up again," said Barrett.

"There's nowhere to put people that have cancelled or didn't show up except, oh, seven or eight weeks ... maybe a couple of months."

Jessica Vancolen, secretary of the P.E.I. Dental Hygienists Association and a registered dental hygienist, said this eventually results in a pileup of appointments a mixture ofpatients who were bumped to a later date and patients who had been booked for that time.

With the added challenge of workers leaving the practice or moving to another office, she said routine appointments that would normally be scheduled every six months are now booking up to 10months in advance.

Recruitment and retention

There are no institutions on P.E.I. that offer dental hygienist training for people who want to work in the field, and Vancolen said it's a barrier to hiring and retaining staff.

"You have to either go the closest place [which] would be Moncton or Halifax, so a lot of people they'll go to those places and then maybe decide, 'Oh, I like it here' and they'll stay," she said.

Vancolensaid more incentives, like paying off student loans for people come back to the Island, could help entice those folks to potentially become staff and assist with the workload.

The Canadian Dental Associationsays labour shortagesare not isolated to P.E.I., but area country-wide problem that's been challenging both before and after the pandemic.

In a statement to CBC News, the associationsaid, "Combined, existing workforce challenges, modifications to patient management, and more patients returning to their dental home for care are causing dental appointments to be scheduled or rescheduled farther out."

It said other factors impactingappointmentbacklogs, including early retirements, can vary by province.

The CDAsaid it has renewed its collaboration with the Canadian Dental Assistants' Association to develop a project called Building the Professional Dental Assisting Workforce of the Future,aimed atassisting dental office staff with wellness resources and action plans to address labour mobility and integration of immigrants into the workforce.