STRIKE action held by teachers has come as "another massive blow" for a Dunfermline dental practice who may be forced to delay appointments by up to four MONTHS as staff take time off to care for their children.

Aleks Wasiak, who has owned Canmore Dental Practice for 18 years, says the "unbelievable" need for care is the largest she has ever seen in the 22 years since she graduated from university.

And, despite overcoming challenges such as a nationwide dentist shortage earlier this year, she has warned that patients at her Abbey Park Place and Lochgelly locations will now face a harsher triage system and weeks waiting to be seen as urgent concerns gain priority.

"In dentistry it has been a horrific year through problems with restrictions and staff shortages, particularly from a clinician's point of view," she explained.

"Dentistry was on hold for so long and as soon as we were able to open the doors and restrictions were lifted, we were in an absolute recruitment crisis, there aren't enough dentists in the UK. Now we have successfully recruited and we all have nobody to look after our kids! I don't know what the solution is, but I don't think it is fair that it is put on my team.

"I have a team with people who are single parents, people whose partners can't take time off, we don't know what we are going to do.

"Dentistry is often a forgotten voice, our need is no different in the strains on staffing and patient care required, it is no different to what GPs and hospitals are experiencing, but they have a louder voice and patients are aware."

She fears that patients, some of whom have already waited since August for an appointment and whose bookings now may be pushed back to March, will take their frustrations out on her staff members, leading to a potential increase in sick leave due to stress levels.

She added: "There is a national shortage of dentists, that's because during the pandemic they didn't allow dentists from overseas to come and work here, they stopped all the entrance exams, and on top of that they didn't graduate new dentists and there was a large number who moved out of the NHS.

"We were fortunate we did recruit new clinicians but the problem with all of that is it all impacts patient care and it impacts waiting times and it impacts stress levels for the team.

"We are not superhuman, we are the same as anyone else who goes to work.

"Reception staff mainly are struggling to deal with the public, we understand where people are coming from but there is nothing we can do about it, we can't magic appointments for next week if they have an appointment changed, it isn't realistic.

"This was just another massive blow, a lot of us do have children of school age, I have three children myself, you do ask, 'Who is looking after them?'

"Whether we want to or not there will be patients having to be changed.

"As a business owner, I know there is still care needed but, like any other parents, we now have kids to look after randomly on days teachers are striking."

The Press reported in February that Aleks had been left worried for her own safety after a patient threatened to wait for her outside the practice and that her staff were "constantly abused" over things like face masks, hand-sanitising, and wait times.

Now she has raised concerns that history may repeat itself.

"Patients will be asking why their appointments are changed if they are not on strike days, they are being cancelled to allow the urgent care which was on a strike day to be moved into that time," she said.

"You can imagine how much bad feeling all of that is creating and how difficult it is for the staff who have to make these phone calls.

"I am a realist, it is going to wear my staff down having to phone patients, patients aren't going to be happy about this so they will get the brunt of it.

"Ultimately, patient care will be affected in a massive way and they have already been waiting for months because of all the problems which have been spiralling out of control.

"The people who will get the brunt of this are the reception staff trying to shuffle people's appointments around and it is unfair on them, but you can understand it from the patients' point of view.

She continued: "Health care and dentistry isn't something where people are choosing to go, there is an overwhelming need of care at the moment.

"People are in pain, people have bits broken everywhere, people are worried about things like oral cancer.

"The fact of the matter is, we are not striking, we are here, we are doing our best, but there is an unbelievable need for care, the biggest I have ever seen."