A recent article I read showed the difficult situation the people of Ballarat can be faced with considering the lack of emergency dental services in that, and other regional areas.

It was a pretty alarming story – a 9-year-old boy in Ballarat was accidentally hit with a golf club and needed emergency dental work. Sadly, it was outside of standard operating hours – a Saturday afternoon – and despite the injury being somewhat severe, it took his poor parents three hours to find someone to fix their son’s poor mouth.

“The parents said it was shocking that a city with 100,000 residents did not have an emergency dental care service.”

There would be few things more distressing or frustrating than finding yourself in need of emergency dental work, and not being able to secure it where you live.

It doesn’t bear thinking about, but if you have been in a kind of trauma from, say, a car accident, a sports mishap or any kind of accident where you’ve experienced a cracked or broken tooth, or just sudden acute pain outside of ‘normal’ business hours, access to dental work when it’s needed, as opposed to just when it’s convenient, an after-hours dental service can seem like a godsend.

We don’t often consider the idea of a ‘dental emergency’. Defined as any injury to the gums, jaws or teeth, or an injury that seems mild (which may be serious if not treated properly by a qualified dental professional) a dental emergency can seem all the worse if you have to wait too long for ‘normal business hours’ to commence.

But the situation isn’t so bad all throughout the Victorian regions. I’m happy to let you know that even though Geelong is regional, Myers Street Dental offers emergency appointments! We also offer extended operating hours on alternating Saturdays and Wednesday nights, to help you find the time to stop in.

Our services are also here to help if you have severe or ongoing tooth or gum pain. Sometimes you might go months without knowing you have a cavity or gingivitis; sometimes, you know about it all too well and immediate care is needed. Once we identify the issue, we’ll to help you to determine the right course for care for you, no matter what the time is.

If you find yourself in a dental emergency, find your way to a local Geelong region medical facility for an examination and treatment planning to establish what’s going to be required. We can then make a special arrangement with a nearby facility and anaesthetist, one of our dentists and nurses will bring their instruments and equipment to perform the necessary procedures while you are anesthetised.

We like to think about more pleasant things; nobody wants to focus on the possibility to experiencing pain and trauma and having little options to deal with it. But you should rest assured that in Geelong at least, you’ll not necessarily be faced with such a nasty situation.