After “serious failings” observed during an inspection, a dentist based in Manche has just been suspended from his right to practice and his patients invited to be screened.
- In order to guarantee the quality of care provided to users, the Regional Health Agency (ARS) carries out inspection and control missions to healthcare structures throughout the year.
- During an inspection in a dental office located in Manche, “infectious risks” were noted. “A lack of sterilization” of the equipment, according to a departmental daily.
- The ARS suspended the dentist from his right to practice, and invited all patients who have visited the office since January 2023 to be tested for HIV and hepatitis B and C.
1.145. This is the number of patients of a dentist called to be urgently tested for HIV and hepatitis B and C, after “infectious risks” were noted during an inspection in his office located in Cherbourg-en-Cotentin (Manche).
Suspension of a dentist: “A lack of sterilization” healthcare equipment
During a routine inspection, as it does around 250 each year, the Normandy Regional Health Agency (ARS) would have discovered “numerous serious breaches jeopardizing the safety of staff and the quality and safety of care”can we read in a communicated. According to information from La Presse de la Manchewho revealed the affair, “specific equipment used during treatment may have been subject to a lack of sterilization”.
“Given the worrying nature of the situation”the Director General of the ARS pronounced the suspension of the right to practice of the dentist in question, Dr Moschopoulos, for a maximum period of 5 months.
HIV, hepatitis B and C: a low risk of transmission
“In application of the precautionary principle and on the basis of an assessment of the infectious risks incurred”the ARS requested that “the patient is informed, due to a low risk of transmission of hepatitis B viruses (HBV), hepatitis C (HCV) and HIV”continues the press release.
All patients who have visited the dental office since its opening in January 2023 are affected. Each of them will be informed by letter to their home from the office, and will have to consult their attending physician who will prescribe the screening tests. Free, these consist of a blood test and can be carried out by an analysis laboratory. The ARS invites patients who do not have a treating doctor to consult a local doctor or a free screening and diagnosis information center (CEGIDD).
This is not the first controversy of its kind to arise in France: last May and October, thousands of people had to be tested because of a “failure to sterilize the equipment used” during dental treatment in hospitals in Lyon and Hautes-Pyrénées.
