A LOCHGELLY dental practice owner is fearing for her own safety after abuse and threats made to her and her staff.

Aleks Wasiak, who owns Canmore dental practices in Lochgelly and Dunfermline has been left worried for her wellbeing after a patient threatened to wait for her outside her work.

She also says her staff are "constantly abused" over issues like face masks, hand sanitising, and waiting times.

She told the Times: "I think I probably speak for every dental practice and frontline staff member, we are all pretty much feeling the same.

"You can understand it, people are just frustrated, but we are on the brunt end of it daily and it's not helping the mental health of my staff, who have then had to go off on long-time sick which puts us in an even worse situation, it's a vicious circle.

"I think for anybody who is working in frontline care, it's the exact same story."

She attributed multiple factors for the abuse, including the rules put in place in attempts to keep staff and patients safe from Covid.

"One of the main problems is we are still not allowed to unlock our front doors," she explained.

"We are following standard operating procedures, asking patients the questions we have to ask them, patients can be quite ratty about having to answer them, so we have to give an explanation to why we are doing it.

"They basically push past you at the front door.

"We ask people obviously to wear a face mask indoors unless they are exempt, we get daily verbal abuse about that across all generations, it's got nothing to do with how old a person is or their health beliefs, it's just general bad manners towards my staff.

"On multiple occasions personally, and on a frequent basis, I've had discussions with patients about why they should hand sanitise before they come in, patients stand there with their hands in their mouths at our reception, so we ask them to sanitise on their way out.

"It's hand sanitising, it's face masks, it's if they buzz the door and we are not there - instantly an attitude and a mouthful.

"Only last week I had a patient threatening to wait outside for me after work.

"Staff are constantly abused on the phone, it's maybe as much as every second patient at the moment, maybe more than that.

"I don't really like coming into work wondering if someone is waiting in the car park for me.

"That's not very pleasant as a female when I leave work at whatever time at night."

She explained that one of the biggest issues in dentistry currently is that they have not received an update to the operating procedures which were put in place at the start of the pandemic.

Her practice has been open throughout the crisis, with staff putting themselves in high risk situations to provide essential care.

"I get that patients are frustrated," she said.

"I understand that.

"We have had our own Covid situations, just like any other business.

"Patients are just very self-focused at the moment, there is no consideration to my team and what we are doing to deliver the best care we can.

"It's not productive to vent towards us, but I guess they have nobody else to vent towards, it's difficult.

"This is the new norm for dentistry."