The Barbados Dental Association has described as ‘horrible’ a situation in which unqualified and unregistered practitioners are performing dental procedures.
President Vidya Armogan told the DAILY NATION there was a group of people from Jamaica and the United States who were coming in and training Barbadians to do procedures for which they themselves were not trained “in any form or fashion”.
As a result of this, Armogan said some nail technicians were offering veneers, fashion braces, cleaning, whitening of teeth and botox, among other services, in environments “completely unsuitable” for that purpose.
He said the “quacks” were entering Barbados, renting via Airbnb and offering the services in environments that were not sterile.
Recently, Dr Eugene Gamble, the coordinator of a two-day Continuous Education Dental Convention, cautioned about the prevalence of rogue individuals who had been offering services on social media.
“People are being drawn in by social media marketing. You have people who are flouting all sorts of rules, regulations and laws and people are none the wiser. They are coming in from abroad and they are advertising, and people are going to them, not realising that they don’t have any qualifications at all. That is a serious public health situation,” Gamble warned.
Armogan said: “These quacks are taking advantage of how slowly things move in Barbados and the Caribbean, and
they are pulling in Barbadians who do not know that they are not qualified.”
Pointing to an increase in the number of unqualified people involved in the illegal practice, Armogan said there were now about ten of them and they were offering courses costing thousands of dollars.
He said the Dental Association became aware of the situation about five years ago and drew it to the attention of the Government. Referencing the Dental Act and Medical Act, he said that they were very clear.
“If you do any of these procedures without being qualified to do so, you are in violation of the Act,” he warned.
Armogan added that the association’s first course of action was to call the practitioners and let them know that what they were doing was illegal “and a lot of the times they don’t know that they are [doing something illegal]”.
Citing the health risks patients are exposed to, he said tooth decay and gum recession were among the diseases with which patients could present thereafter. (John Boyce)
