Australian Dental Association NSW launches directory for community to access urgent treatment amid COVID-19 pandemic

Dental practices across the Hunter have been forced to reduce hours or close after guidelines were introduced advising dentists to delay all non-urgent treatment.

With check-ups and cleans off the cards, many businesses have been left fighting for survival given the significant drop in patient numbers.

But urgent treatment can in most cases still be carried out depending on the type of procedure. The new directory aims to help people avoid a scramble to find a dentist.

"Routine dental treatment can be safely delayed," ADA NSW president Dr Kathleen Matthews said. "If you need more urgent treatment - for example, if you develop an abscess, you have a toothache or your child damages a tooth while playing - your first step should be to call your regular family dentist.

"If you don't have a dentist, you can use the online dental emergency directory to find your nearest dentist."

Raymond Terrace dentist and ADA NSW board member Dr Chris Wilson said the pandemic had been a "dramatic" blow to the industry with an 50 per cent of practices shutting their doors.

His practice is doing "about a third" of the amount of work it would usually do.

"Those practices that have closed have obviously stood their staff down," he said.

"I'll probably be able to retain my staff in one way or another, but for practices running on debt - and there would be plenty that have equipment leases, rent and borrowings - they would have been in difficult circumstances from the start.

"Hopefully the JobKeeper will get most of those people back to having an attachment with practices and as things change and relax they'll be able to go back into the roles they were in."

Dr Wilson said the industry might be forced to make permanent changes to the "level of protection" used within practices moving forward but he predicted non-urgent work would resume "in a similar fashion to restaurants or hotels".

"I don't think we can see things being any different for at least two more months," he said.

He said while the guidelines preventing non-urgent work had been damaging for the industry, they were a best-practice measure.

"Because this is a virus that can be spread in droplets and aerosols, drilling and filling with a high-speed handpiece might ... generate those sorts of aerosols that take a little while to dissipate," he said.

"That means if you were actually treating a patient who had the virus, you might put it into the atmosphere and the environment."