The turquoise movement: the importance of nursing support for dental hygienists and therapists

providing nursing supportAs #Help4hygiene gathers momentum, Amber Ojak explains why so many people are getting behind the campaign for nursing support.

Over the last few weeks there has been some awareness raised over the importance of supplying dental hygienists and therapists with full nursing support.

Due to the unfortunate events of the coronavirus, more and more dental hygienists and therapists are having nursing support taken away or denied. At a time when we are in need of this more than ever.

The new procedures that we have to follow mean that it has never been so important for us as professionals to have nursing support. This ensures optimum patient safety and care.

#Help4hygiene

The BSDHT started raising awareness. It sent out a letter to 35 dental organisations and professional bodies, to ask for their support in this.

Some bodies such as the BADN have come out in full support.

Following on from this, I decided that I would use my social media platform to continue to increase this awareness.

Last Wednesday I posted a turquoise square with the hashtag ‘#Help4hygiene’ to increase people’s knowledge of the topic. Never for one moment did I imagine the positive reaction it would have.

This post reached just under 2,000 members on Instagram alone. More than 200 people shared it onwards.

Over 100 people continue to post the turquoise square and hashtag. It is triggering a topic of conversation between dental hygienists, therapists, nurses, dentists and practice managers.

I never once thought one simple post would spark such a positive wave throughout the dental community.

Nursing support

Many professionals spoke about their experiences and how important it is to have a dental nurse.

Everyone came together to share their thoughts in such a wonderful way. Sharing the awareness has never been so important, especially with the changing environment we are seeing in dentistry.

As dental professionals we now face increased stress with the extra PPE and restrictions to treatment.

By having no nurse present to help us drastically adds to these stresses.

Providing optimum patient care is all we aspire to do. This is exactly why we need this support.


Follow Dentistry.co.uk on Instagram to keep up with all the latest dental news and trends.

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