A Kalgoorlie-Boulder business owner has shared her heartbreak as COVID-19 ripped through her family while she isolated at work for 12 days to keep the business running.

Goldfields Family Dental owner Alex Naylor spoke at the 2022 Women’s Leadership Forum last week to discuss the importance of family, staff and the community while running a small business.

She said owning a dental practice, especially during a global pandemic, did pose challenges for her family both at work and at home.

When the Naylors were struck down with the virus a week before a new dentist was due to start at the clinic, Ms Naylor and her husband Rhys had discussed how they would take care of the business, and their four children.

Ultimately, they decided Ms Naylor would isolate at the clinic while her husband took care of their children who all became unwell.

“It was my birthday, and I stayed there for 12 days without my kids or my husband, and my husband got COVID and he was quite sick,” she said.

“I didn’t get to see my family for 12 days and it really sucked, and that’s what happens when you have a small business and you have a family, and you want both.”

She said running a small business was riddled with those sacrifices, but worth it to be able to show her children a better life than she or her husband had known growing up.

“You run a small business, you have a family, and this is real. There’s just no balance, and I can’t say that there is,” she said.

“(You can have both), but you need to make sacrifices and you have to be willing to make those sacrifices, but you should know that at the end of the day everything that is done is done for your children.

“I’m trying to cut my clinical hours down but it’s hard. It’s hard to find staff, it’s hard to keep up — I’m booked out until September, and a lot of the practitioners in the practice are.

“But what do you do when you’re doing admin work and someone has a toothache? I’m going to help them.”

Ms Naylor said valuing their staff and the Kalgoorlie-Boulder community was important to the husband-wife team, with Goldfields Family Dental supporting local causes, as well as their staff with training, meals together and solid wages.

“The last couple of years have been hard for every business in town especially (when) we opened during COVID — or a couple months after — and let’s just say I was s…… myself,” she said.

“Being a leader is not about being above someone else, it’s about creating an environment around you in which you lead by example and motivate others to do the same. It’s not easy and I commend all the great leaders.”

Ms Naylor said she had worked in regional areas since graduation in 2004, but had made Kalgoorlie-Boulder home for more than 12 years now after moving to the Goldfields to work before opening her own practice.