The owner of a dental clinic in Lindsay is defending his practice after health officials have warned his patients to be tested for hepatitis and HIV.
The Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit issued a warning Tuesday after officials said they recently discovered incidents of improper sterilization of equipment at the Lakeland Clinic on Albert Street North.
The warning is for patients who received treatment between Nov. 10, 2017, and Feb. 21.
The health unit says one person recently diagnosed with hepatitis C was a patient at the clinic and there’s a “potential link” for a second clinic patient.
In a statement to CHEX News on Wednesday, Dr. Eric Orpana, who has 43 years of surgical and anesthesia experience, says he’s “overwhelmed by all of this.”
“I would like to assure our patients that the Lakeland Clinic has always had a vigorous cleaning and sterilization protocol in place,” Orpana said.
Orpana says “to his knowledge” there are “no studies linking disease transmission of hepatitis C, hepatitis B or HIV to dental instruments that went through the type of processes that we were using.”
But Orpana, an oral and maxillofacial surgeon, claims the Ministry of Health changed the rules to cleaning protocol.
“Information regarding these new rules unfortunately did not reach our office,” he said.
Orpana says he worked closely with the health unit to make the necessary changes which have been updated since Feb. 22.
“Since our opening in 1999, our staff have worked hard to ensure that all patients’ experiences at Lakeland Clinic have been favourable and safe,” he said.