Updated
The New South Wales Government has warned decades worth of patients at a dental surgery in Sydney’s inner-west they could have been infected with bloodborne viruses.
Dr James Pok-Yan Ng was suspended after his cleaning and sterilisation practices in Haberfield breached Australian Dental Guidelines.
Sydney Local Health District [SLHD] said patients who had visited the Ramsay Street practice in the past 35 years should get precautionary testing for hepatitis B, C and HIV.
People who had “invasive procedures”, which would have involved a needle or instrument piercing the skin, were the most at risk, according to the SLHD.
Despite the warning, the SLHD said there was a “low risk” of infection, and that no cases had been recorded yet.
The president of the Dental Council of NSW, Dr Shane Fryer, said the practice was inspected last month following a complaint.
That investigation found evidence of poor cleaning of the dental equipment and practice.
Topics: government-and-politics, health, dental, haberfield-2045
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