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NHS Dentists Deride Pay Cut While One In Three UK Patients Cannot Find One
Something is definitely wrong in the United Kingdom and their nationalized/socialized dental health care system called the National Health Service Dentistry.First, the dentists are complaining about a pay cut.
The national leaders of the UK’s general dental practitioners described as ‘derisory’ the 0.21 per cent increase in earnings awarded by the government following today’s recommendation of the
Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Pay. The Retail Prices Index is currently at 3.2 per cent-anything less than this is effectively a pay cut.Chairman of the DPA Jim Donaldson BDS said “The DDRB seems to assume no responsibility for diffic
lties in NHS access. Year after year we have tried to explain to them that dentists are motivated to either join or leave the NHS based on comparison with similarly skilled groups and also the disparity in terms and conditions between the public and priv
te sectors. Pay is a vital element of the NHS package, yet year after year it is cut in real terms.“The new contract is sufficiently unattractive and uncertain without this further clear signal that financial penalties are to be imposed year
fter year by below-inflation awards”.President of the DPA Brian Levy BDS said “With the RPI at 3.2 per cent, this recommendation can only be viewed by NHS dentists as another pay cut. This will further reduce our members’ ability to accept an
treat NHS patients”.Yet, UK patients are having probelms with access to patient care and affording it even should they find
a NHS dentist who will treat them.Despite Government promises to improve access, research reveals that 35 per cent of adults are struggling to get the dental care they need – up from 23 per cent the year before.
In some
parts of the country, half the adults said they cannot see an NHS dentist – forcing them to go without treatment or to pay privately.The credit crunch is also having an impact on the nation’s dental health.
The poll revealed that a
most 50 per cent of the population say they are put off going to the dentist over fears of the cost. Last year the figure was one in five.Abby Bowman from Simplyhealth, the private dental provider which carried out the survey, said: ‘The NHS
ental contracts introduced three years ago were supposed to give more people access to dentists, but as our research shows this is only getting worse.’So, the UK nationalized system has the worst of both worlds – cost and availability.
But, isn’t this the lesson of a price fixed system taught in basic economics?And, the UK politicians, where do they stand while their own people are resorting to extracting their own teeth while continuing to pay high taxes for services they
annot obtain?Well, Prime Minister Gordon Brown who opposes private medicine says – Let Them Eat Cake.
CHANCELLOR Gordon Bro
n came under fire last night after it was revealed he has been using a £100-an-hour private dentist. Mr Brown, a fierce opponent of private medicine, has been a regular patient at the exclusive London Centre for Cosmetic Dentistry.It boasts a string of celebrity clients, including Oasis singer Liam Gallagher.
Just last week, as an estimated two million Britons continued to struggle without access to an NHS dentist, the Chancellor attended the clinic to undergo root canal treatment. Treated by the practice owner, Mervyn Drurian, he had two half-hour sessions t
clean out a dead nerve and cap one of his teeth.The bill is expected to run into hundreds of pounds, once laboratory fees are added.
Astonishingly a spokesman for the Chancellor defended his decision to go private by blaming the current lack of NHS dentists available.
A spokesman said: “Using a private dentist is not the same as using a private doctor.
“Gordon is no different to the large number of people who have found themselves without an NHS dentist because he did not visit one regularly.
“If you have a toothache, you have to find a dentist quickly and to do that you have to go private. It is not like arranging an appointment with your GP. â€
Astonishingly?
No, not really.
The POLS know where to go for the best treatment and the peasants in their elite, socialized system can just “PISS OFF.”
Technorati Tags: NHS Dentistry, Gordon Brown
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NHS Dentistry Watch: English Continue Pulling Own Teeth as NHS System Collapses Around Them
Elizabeth Green: ‘The teeth got more and more painful and one evening I couldn’t take it any longer’
Another NHS Dentistry horror story in the UK.
Elizabeth Green, 76, telephoned 12 dental surgeries complaining of severe toothache, but was told every time that they were not accepting new NHS patients.
Finally, her two front teeth became so painful that she was forced to extract them herself.
The number of people carrying out DIY dentistry is thought to be on the rise, due to the dwindling availability of NHS dental treatment.
Mrs Green, a former chef, said it was made plain to her that treatment would be available only if she was willing to pay for it.
“I feel so angry,” she told the Daily Mail. “I’ve worked all my life and paid taxes and then when I need help I can’t get it.”
Obviously, market forces in Britain are privatizing the system while the government clings to a socialized model of dental delivery that has failed.
Maybe more stories will shame the government in working with British dentistry to facilitate a more hasty transition to private dental health care delivery while providing for the truly needy and disabled.
Previous:
NHS Dentistry Watch: English Pulling Own Teeth as NHS System Collapses
NHS Dentistry Watch: UK Dentist Faces Discipline Over Muslim Head Scarf Flap
NHS Dentistry Watch: NHS Dentists May Be Forced to Refund Government Millions
NHS Dentistry Watch: NHS Dentistry Reforms Are Failing
NHS Dentistry Watch: Do It Yourself Dentistry for NHS Dentist Short Britain
NHS Dentistry Watch: Another Desperate Dentistry Story
NHS Dentistry Watch: NHS Dental Office Queues Banned
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Free Market Dentistry in Europe
What a shocker?
British dentistry where the free market is constrained by the National Health Service is also the most expensive.
The United Kingdom should transition away from their government sponsored program (NHS) to a wholly private one while providing for the indigent, poor and infirm via government supported vouchers.
Flap wonders if some government official will suggest the government pay for airplane tickets for Brits to head over to Poland?
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NHS Blog Doctor is Back
William Kelly, 43, extracted part of his own tooth, leaving a black stump. He plans to pull one more.
Dr. John Crippen from the NHS Blog Doctor has returned to the blogosphere.
Flap enjoys reading about this physician’s trials and tribulations while he fights the absurdity of the National Health Service in the United Kingdom.
If Americans want an insight as to what HILLARY CARE or ARNOLD CARE would provide the United States, read Dr. Crippen’s blog.
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NHS Dentistry Watch: English Pulling Own Teeth as NHS System Collapses
William Kelly, 43, extracted part of his own tooth, leaving a black stump. He plans to pull one more.
English ‘pull own teeth’ as dental service decays
Falling numbers of state dentists in England has led to some people taking extreme measures, including extracting their own teeth, according to a new study released Monday.
Falling numbers of state dentists in England has led to some people taking extreme measures, including extracting their own teeth, according to a new study released Monday.
Others have used superglue to stick crowns back on, rather than stumping up for private treatment, said the study. One person spoke of carrying out 14 separate extractions on himself with pliers.
More typically, a lack of publicly-funded dentists means that growing numbers go private: 78 percent of private patients said they were there because they could not find a National Health Service (NHS) dentist, and only 15 percent because of better treatment.
“This is an uncomfortable read for all of us, and poses serious questions to politicians from patients,” said Sharon Grant of the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health.
Overall, six percent of patients had resorted to self-treatment, according to the survey of 5,000 patients in England, which found that one in five had decided against dental work because of the cost.
The British NHS Dental Health Care System is clearly not working. Flap has been documenting the inevitable collapse of this “SOCIALIZED” system for years now.
With only a little more than half of UK dentists participating in the NHS, the government must facilitate changes unless they prefer stories like this.
Hints to the Labor Government:
1. Eliminate the NHS dental system gradually
2. Allow dentistry to be a private system like in Australia, Canada or South Africa
3. Establish a government paid voucher system which is redeemable at ANY dental office in the UK for the truly poor, disabled or infirm.
4. Cut taxes for the dentists and patients that pay for the abysmal NHS dental system.
5. Convene a panel of dental economists to privatize the UK dental care industry, including dental education.
Stay tuned………
Previous:NHS Dentistry Watch: UK Dentist Faces Discipline Over Muslim Head Scarf Flap
NHS Dentistry Watch: NHS Dentists May Be Forced to Refund Government Millions
NHS Dentistry Watch: NHS Dentistry Reforms Are Failing
NHS Dentistry Watch: Do It Yourself Dentistry for NHS Dentist Short Britain
NHS Dentistry Watch: Another Desperate Dentistry Story
NHS Dentistry Watch: NHS Dental Office Queues Banned
Technorati Tags: dentistry, NHS, NHS dentistry, National Health Service, British Dentistry, UK Dentistry, dentist, dental
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NHS Dentistry Watch: UK Dentist Faces Discipline Over Muslim Head Scarf Flap
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in a Muslim head scarf
One of the side benefits of having the government controlling health care.A muslim dentist made a woman wear Islamic dress as the price of accepting her as an NHS patient, it is alleged.
Omer Butt is said to have told the patient that unless she wore a headscarf she would have to find another practice.
But, these UK government MORONS are only two years late in prosecuting this NHS dentist.
Flap can hardly wait for Hillary Care 2.0.
Previous:
NHS Dentistry Watch: NHS Dentists May Be Forced to Refund Government Millions
NHS Dentistry Watch: NHS Dentistry Reforms Are Failing
NHS Dentistry Watch: Do It Yourself Dentistry for NHS Dentist Short Britain
NHS Dentistry Watch: Another Desperate Dentistry Story
NHS Dentistry Watch: NHS Dental Office Queues Banned
Technorati Tags: dentistry, NHS, NHS dentistry, National Health Service, British Dentistry, UK Dentistry, dentist, dental
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NHS Dentistry Watch: NHS Dentists May Be Forced to Refund Government Millions
The Times: NHS dentists who missed targets may be forced to pay back millions
The impact will be even greater on dental care as incomes will be reduced, sparking fears more dentists will leave the NHS
Dentists may have to pay back millions of pounds to the NHS because they have failed to reach their targets in the first year of a new contract.
Some dentists face repayments of tens of thousands of pounds, and in a few cases more than £100,000. The impact on dental practices will be even greater because their income next year will be reduced, and it is feared that the problems may lead to even more dentists leaving the NHS.
The problem is the latest to hit the troubled NHS dental contract, which rewards dentists for the “units of dental activity†(UDAs) that they complete. Many dentists – nobody yet knows how many – have failed to achieve the UDA targets that were set by primary care trusts, and for which they have already been paid.
One dentist said that the contract had turned him into “a UDA factoryâ€, working flat-out to achieve the targets. Others said that the only way to reach the targets was to take on quick jobs such as extracting teeth, rather than root-canal surgery to save the tooth, which earns the same UDA score.
Good Grief.
The NHS Dental system in the United Kingdom has gotten much worse not better with increased government scrutiny and involvement. Should this be surprising?
If my colleagues in Britain want to fix their system, they must privaitize their dentistry health care delivery system. After all, even other former Commonwealth countries, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia have primarily private dental systems.
Or they could model their system on the American private system.
What the NHS provides their dentists and patients today is the worst of all worlds: a government run system with bureucratic HMO targeted contracts where the provider is at financial risk.
Why would any dentist wish to participate in this system? Why should the individual dentist be held financially responsible for the health and health care decisions of individual citizens?
As my fellow blogger, Dr. John Crippen says:
“The overwhelming majority of British dentists are decent, caring, and hard-working.â€
Government targets have pushed them towards working unethically. Towards working unprofessionally. They will not do that. The Times quotes a dentist who says:
“I a patient comes in and needs more than two crowns, it costs me more to do the work than I get paid. So there is a temptation not to do the things that need doing. There is a huge potential for supervised neglect.”
This government has done it to the doctors; it has done it to the teachers (see : “Life after the job from hell” ); it has done it to the lawyers (see : “Half the Cost of a no frills meal“); so I suppose it is only fair that it does it to the dentists.
But ask yourself this. How many of these NHS dentists, faced with financial disaster, will still be working in the NHS next year?
Answers on a post-card to Patricia Hewitt.
And what adds insult to injury are the high tax rates in the United Kingdom to pay for these “government” benefits.
Perhaps the British Dental Association should consider an orderly phase into a private system so as to minimize a dislocation of patient care. If not, the individual dentists will chose privitization with their feet by walking out of the NHS entirely.
The Stats:
50% Amount of average dentist’s income from private work. Fifteen years ago it was 6%
20,887 Number of NHS dentists at end of 2006. On March 31 last year it was 21,111
£100,000 Estimated income of one in ten dentists before the new contract system
46% Percentage of adults registered with a dentist (children 62.9%)
Let’s look at some of the comments:
From the Times:
Oh dear!
Means my local NHS Dentist might have to get rid of one of their 2 brand new Porsche Boxters and might have to downgrade the new Range Rover Sport as well.
Hard times ahead indeed.
Bry Barnes, Somerset, Uk
********Another “Target debacle” ruled over by this government! “Targets, targets, targets” should have been Blair’s sound-bite when he came to government, not “education, education, education”. This is why the NHS is not making headway when it has money pouring into it – there is a whole industry in government (and the NHS etc) just to set and measure targets.
B. Cox, cambridge, uk
*********GPs met the targets set by their new contract and saw their pay being cut in the form of a reduction in pension.
If dentists had hit their targets one wonders if the government would have clawed back the pay in other ways on the grounds of ‘affordability’john phillips, edinburgh
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
And to add insult to injury we now have to throw away a large number of precision instruments after one use; which isn’t necessarily a problem, except that the government isn’t giving the dentists any more money to pay for this non-evidence based dictat.
student dentist | 30.04.07 – 5:15 pm | #********The Guardian today hints that Gordon Brown will give the NHS political independence in his first 100 days as PM rather like he did with the Bank of England in his few few days as chancellor. Given the incredible amount of incompetence the Government has shown over its management of the NHS, is it high time this happened or just another smoke screen? You guys who actually work in the NHS would know best…
I would really like to hear your views on this Dr Crippen. You describe the NHS as bowing to government control freakery – is this where the heart of the NHS’s problems really lie?
http://www.pickinglosers.com/ adv…litical_control
JG | Homepage | 30.04.07 – 5:58 pm | #*********Dr. Crippen:
Who are you (or anyone else) to say the Harley Street docs, or the dentists, SHOULD be in their NHS clinics?
The mentality that physicians (and dentists) are somehow “owned” by the people, hence by the government……almost a public utility……that’s how we got into this trouble in the first place.
I say “we” ’cause we’re not that much different in the USA.
Given what you describe of the NHS, I daresay the dentists are behaving rationally.
arf | 30.04.07 – 6:41 pm | #********What a picture. At least he won’t eat swans again.
dearieme | 30.04.07 – 7:08 pm | #********ideological preferences aside, arf, these dentists agreed a contract and have been paid (in advance) for work they have not done. The real unfairness here is that private surgical clinics paid by the government on the same basis (per units) have been paid even though they did not do all the contracted work (I assume the contracts differed, still, it is unfair).
jayann | 30.04.07 – 8:10 pm | #********Ah, different story, of course.
We had a similar problem with Medicaid dentistry in our area. Medicaid is a state/government program for the poor.
They got a sum of money from the government to provide dental services to a population of indigent people in our area. Yet I was repeatedly being called after-hours for pain medicines, etc., for dental pain. It’s a problem, as most people calling in that scenario are really seeking narcotics (in my area at least).
One time I got so fed up with it. Someone called seeking analgesics, and the person had just had dental work a few days earlier. “Why aren’t you calling your dentist?”. “The answering service says there’s no one on-call”. So they call me, ’cause I answer the phone. Sometimes I think I’m the only one who answers the phone.
I took the person’s name, all the relevant numbers, called the dental service myself. What do you know, the person was right. No one was listed as being on-call for emergencies, contrary to their contract. They took the money and didn’t provide the service.
And to add insult to injury, the work we physicians did….work the dentists were supposed to do but didn’t…..that work came out of our own Medicaid budget, so we look that more spendthrft in our services, and the dentists look that much more “efficient”.
I took that story, named names, and made a big stink.
They cleaned up their act, at least for the time being.
arf | 30.04.07 – 8:25 pm | #********John, you forgot one profession that has also been stuffed by the government and that is the profession of Nursing.
doctorno | 30.04.07 – 8:58 pm | #********In my profession’s defence, Most dentists work an on call rota between a few practices in the area so real emergencies shouldn’t slip through the net.
Some practice’s haven’t met their targets, from what i understand this is often because they are in an area of high need. i.e. people who require 12 fillings, three molar root canals and a course of perio treatment. This could take up to 10 hours, for which the dentist ‘earns’ 3 UDA’s and as an example my trainer next year has a target of 11’000. There are also incidences of the work completed in the ‘test period’ being overestimated by as much as 10%.
Of course the other side of the story (and the one i hear more often) is dentists meeting their targets early, applying for more funding to meet the needs of the population from the PCT and being refused. In this instance the only option is to close the practice until the new financial year.
I really believe in the NHS but i’m not sure how i will manage to work in this system and provide the treatment i want to.
student dentist | 30.04.07 – 9:20 pm | #William Kelly, 43, extracted part of his own tooth, leaving a black stump. He plans to pull one more.Previous:
NHS Dentistry Watch: NHS Dentistry Reforms Are Failing
NHS Dentistry Watch: Do It Yourself Dentistry for NHS Dentist Short Britain
NHS Dentistry Watch: Another Desperate Dentistry Story
NHS Dentistry Watch: NHS Dental Office Queues Banned
NHS Dentistry Watch: One in five dentists ready to leave NHS
Dentistry Today: Failed Asylum Seeker Poses as a Dentist
Dentistry Today: Many Dentists “Set to Quit NHSâ€
NHS Dentistry Watch: Poll Says Dentists Will Still Quit
NHS Dentistry Watch: More Dentists Now, More Dentists Later
NHS Dentistry Watch: Dentists Reject £295 million Scottish Executive Deal
Dentistry Today: NHS Dentistry Near Collapse?
NHS Dentistry Watch: Disaster Warning
National Health Service Watch: The Doctors Complain
NHS Dentistry Watch: Do It Yourself Extraction
Related:
Technorati Tags: dentistry, NHS, NHS dentistry, National Health Service, British Dentistry, UK Dentistry, dentist, dental
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NHS Dentistry Watch: NHS Dentistry Reforms Are Failing
January sales or a queue for an NHS dentist?
Reforms to NHS dentistry are failing, the British Dental Association said yesterday as thousands of would-be patients besieged a practice near Portsmouth offering NHS care.
In scenes more typical of the January sales, patients arrived at first light at a new practice in Titchfield Common, Hampshire. Before the doors had opened, 2,000 people had registered online and over the phone. Hundreds more arrived in an attempt to grab the 1,000 remaining places. By the time the surgery opened at 10am, the queue stretched around the block.
Manori Ambrose, who set up the surgery, said: “There are a lot of people who need a dentist who are not even on the waiting list.â€
The British Dental Association (BDA) wrote to Barry Cockroft, the Chief Dental Officer of England, yesterday and called for changes to the dental contract, which has been in force for a year.
Flap wants to know why the British people are putting up with a government that fails to solve their problems?
The Labour government of Tony Blair’s solution: queues or self-treatment?
A better solution is easy – private dentistry with minimal government involvement.
The Brits have been humiliated by Iran, now by a government run (socialized) bureaucracy?
Hat Tip for this piece to NHS Blog Doctor who is fighting the UK NHS System first hand.
Dr. John Crippen’s piece on UK dentistry is here.
William Kelly, 43, extracted part of his own tooth, leaving a black stump. He plans to pull one more.Previous:
NHS Dentistry Watch: Do It Yourself Dentistry for NHS Dentist Short Britain
NHS Dentistry Watch: Another Desperate Dentistry Story
NHS Dentistry Watch: NHS Dental Office Queues Banned
NHS Dentistry Watch: One in five dentists ready to leave NHS
Dentistry Today: Failed Asylum Seeker Poses as a Dentist
Dentistry Today: Many Dentists “Set to Quit NHSâ€
NHS Dentistry Watch: Poll Says Dentists Will Still Quit
NHS Dentistry Watch: More Dentists Now, More Dentists Later
NHS Dentistry Watch: Dentists Reject £295 million Scottish Executive Deal
Dentistry Today: NHS Dentistry Near Collapse?
NHS Dentistry Watch: Disaster Warning
National Health Service Watch: The Doctors Complain
NHS Dentistry Watch: Do It Yourself Extraction
Related:
Technorati Tags: dentistry, NHS, NHSdentistry, NationalHealthService, Britishdentistry, UKdentistry, dentist, dental
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NHS Dentistry Watch: Do It Yourself Dentistry for NHS Dentist Short Britain
William Kelly, 43, extracted part of his own tooth, leaving a black stump. He plans to pull one more.
New York Times: In a Dentist Shortage, British (Ouch) Do It Themselves
“I snapped it out myself,” said William Kelly, 43, describing his most recent dental procedure, the autoextraction of one of his upper teeth.
Now it is a jagged black stump, and the pain gnawing at Mr. Kelly’s mouth has transferred itself to a different tooth, mottled and rickety, on the other side of his mouth. “I’m in the middle of pulling that one out, too,” he said.
It is easy to be mean about British teeth. Mike Myers’s mouth is a joke in itself in the “Austin Powers” movies. In a “Simpsons” episode, dentalphobic children are shown “The Big Book of British Smiles,” cautionary photographs of hideously snaggletoothed Britons. In Mexico, protruding, discolored and generally unfortunate teeth are known as “dientes de ingles.”
But the problem is serious. Mr. Kelly’s predicament is not just a result of cigarettes and possibly indifferent oral hygiene; he is careful to brush once a day, he said. Instead, it is due in large part to the deficiencies in Britain’s state-financed dental service, which, stretched beyond its limit, no longer serves everyone and no longer even pretends to try.
Mr. Kelly, interviewed in a health clinic here as he waited for his son to see a doctor, last visited a dentist six years ago, in Sussex.
Since moving to Rochdale, a working-class suburb of Manchester, he has been unable to find a National Health Service dentist willing to take him on.
Every time he has tried to sign up, lining up with hundreds of others from the ranks of the desperate and the hurting — “I’ve seen people with bleeding gums where they’ve ripped their teeth out,” he said grimly — he has arrived too late and missed the cutoff.
“You could argue that Britain has not seen lines like this since World War II,” said Mark Pritchard, a member of Parliament who represents part of Shropshire, where the situation is just as grim. “Churchill once said that the British are great queuers, but I don’t think he meant that in connection to dental care.”
Britain has too few public dentists for too many people. At the beginning of the year, just 49 percent of the adults and 63 percent of the children in England and Wales were registered with public dentists.
Terrible treatment these British folks are receiving from their socialized government National Health Service. The government taxes the people exorbitantly, promises them basic dental care and then screws the patients and the dentists.
Is there any wonder why Tony Blair’s government sustained major losses in elections last week?
So, what is the solution?
Well, not the recruitment of Polish dentists to do work “that British dentists will NOT do.” Does this sound familiar?
The solution: privitization of British dentistry with government vouchers for the poor and indigent. And…. a little chairty form the British Dental Association until privitization kicks in fully.
Of course, there can always be more “Do It Yourself” stories.
George Glasper, 81, at the Dental Access Center in Rochdale. It gives emergency care but is always swamped.
Discuss this blog post and MORE…. at the FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blogs, My Dental Forum.
Previous:NHS Dentistry Watch: Another Desperate Dentistry Story
NHS Dentistry Watch: NHS Dental Office Queues Banned
NHS Dentistry Watch: One in five dentists ready to leave NHS
Dentistry Today: Failed Asylum Seeker Poses as a Dentist
Dentistry Today: Many Dentists “Set to Quit NHSâ€NHS Dentistry Watch: Poll Says Dentists Will Still Quit
NHS Dentistry Watch: More Dentists Now, More Dentists Later
NHS Dentistry Watch: Dentists Reject £295 million Scottish Executive Deal
Dentistry Today: NHS Dentistry Near Collapse?
NHS Dentistry Watch: Disaster Warning
National Health Service Watch: The Doctors Complain
NHS Dentistry Watch: Do It Yourself Extraction
Related:
Technorati Tags: dentistry, NHS, NHSdentistry, NationalHealthService, Britishdentistry, UKdentistry, dentist, dental
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NHS Dentistry Watch: Another Desperate Dentistry Story
The Daily Mail: Desperate dentistry: Woman pulls tooth with pliers
A woman told today how she got a friend to pull out one of her teeth with a pair of pliers and filmed the gruesome process on a mobile phone after failing to find an NHS dentist.
Diane Hunter, 45, described how she became so exasperated after two years of toothache she opted for a DIY option.
“In the end I just got really drunk and got a friend to pull it out with a pair of big pliers,” she told the Bradford Telegraph and Argus.
“There was a lots of blood but I just needed the tooth out – it was causing me great pain and it still is.”
Failed search for NHS careMiss Hunter, who lives in the Listerhills area of Bradford, said she has not seen a dentist for more than 20 years and failed in her search for any offering NHS care.
She said she first tried the old schoolboy trick of tying one end of a piece of string around her tooth and the other around a door handle before slamming the door but it did not work.
Miss Hunter told the paper she would never pull her own teeth out again.
“I was going to do it again but I showed a nurse at the doctor’s surgery what I had done and she said it could cause a heart attack,” she said.
She even went to hospital for help at one point but was never given anything more than paracetamol.
Her friend performed the DIY dentistry about six months ago.
Another desperate dentistry story from the FAILED SOCIALIZED NHS DENTISTRY in the United Kingdom.
Private dentistry is best with government accomodations/subsidies/vouchers for the truely poor, infirm, old, or disabled.
Look at the comments section of this piece and the varying opinions:
What a silly woman, or is she just an exhibitionist? After experiencing the agony, literally, of a series of poor NHS dentists my wife and I ‘went private’. To our surprise it isn’t much more expensive but the treatment is far superior. Recently I required a prescription for antibiotics and that was actually cheaper than the NHS.
– Chris Downing, Rothwell, England
It’s funny that she could afford to get “really drunk” but wouldn’t consider putting her hand in her own pocket to go to a private dentist. Obviously she was looking for a free service and I guess in the end, that’s what she got.
– Linda B, Tunbridge Wells, Kent
Stupid woman. The money she spent getting drunk would have paid a significant amount towards the cost of a private dentist.
If she can’t be bothered to go to a dentist for regular check-ups why should she assume the NHS will sort out the mess.
– Anon, Reading
I don’t think we should have to go private. Haven’t we paid enough into the system all these years – where has all this money gone? (Or is that a silly question.)
– Diane, N Ireland
I dont blame her. I find myself and family in a similar situation. No NHS dentist available and unable to afford private care. What are we supposed to do?I wish I could get dental care for my childern even if not myself but none is forthcoming in the forseeable future.
– Kaz, cheshire
Stay tuned as more U.K. dentists go “PRIVATE.”
Previous:NHS Dentistry Watch: NHS Dental Office Queues Banned
NHS Dentistry Watch: One in five dentists ready to leave NHS
Dentistry Today: Failed Asylum Seeker Poses as a Dentist
Dentistry Today: Many Dentists “Set to Quit NHSâ€NHS Dentistry Watch: Poll Says Dentists Will Still Quit
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NHS Dentistry Watch: Dentists Reject £295 million Scottish Executive Deal
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NHS Dentistry Watch: Do It Yourself Extraction
Related:
Technorati Tags: dentistry, NHS, NHSdentistry, NationalHealthService, Britishdentistry, UKdentistry, dentist, dental