Man banned from dentist after missing appointment...13 years ago

 

Last updated at 15:50pm on 16th October 2007 Comments

Alex Crook has been left with toothache after being kicked out of his dentist because of a missed appointment 13 years ago.

Businessman Alex, 25, was booked in for a much-needed check-up at the First Choice NHS dental clinic in Southsea, Hants, after more than a decade since his last one. But shocked Alex was struck off after dentist Chris Martin rapped him for his non-attendance as a schoolboy.

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Alex Crook says he has been banned from his dentist for missing an appointment when he was 12

 

Alex, from Portsmouth, said: "I was stunned when I turned up a little late for an appointment to be told I had been struck off because of my 'history'.

"I have not been a patient at the dentist since I was 16 and apparently the appointment I missed was in 1994 when I was 12.

"I have spoken to my mum and dad and they cannot remember the missed appointment but it must have been for a good reason.

"It is like being given a speeding ticket 13 years later. No wonder so many people find it difficult to get dental treatment.

"I bet if I was paying as a private patient it would have been a completely different story."

Since the snub Alex has been forced to fork out for private treatment. Alex added: "I have scoured the phone book and there are no other NHS dentists in the area who are taking patients.

"I have had to go private as a last resort this was my last chance."

Practice manager Wendy Lane refused to comment on the incident due to patient confidentiality rules.

A spokesperson for Portsmouth Primary Health Care Trust said: "We cannot comment on individual cases but it is worth pointing out dentists act as contractors and have their own policies.

"We as a care trust would only get involved if the customer followed the complaints procedure."

A damning survey of 5,200 patients released earlier this week revealed that many are finding it increasingly difficult to find treatment on the NHS and are having to resort to DIY dentistry at home.

Why this washed-up wasteful government is producing backstreet dentists

 

22:11pm 15th October 2007 Comments (33)

A few years ago, I was presenting a nightly show on Sky News. The story of the day was the crisis in NHS dentistry.

 

That morning's newspapers had featured a crocodile of people queueing up to register at a new dental surgery in Grimsby, if I remember rightly. It may have been Hull.

The scene looked just like that Tory election poster from 1979: Labour Isn't Working.

In order to humanise the report, we managed to track down a woman who claimed that she pulled out her own teeth with a pair of pliers and performed a similar service for friends and neighbours denied access to an NHS dentist.

 

 

 

She was in a remote studio somewhere Up North. I was in Millbank, Westminster.

The first I saw of her was during an advert break when she was being shown to her seat in front of the camera.

Without wishing to sound ungallant, she looked like one of those medieval crones who used to turn up for public hangings. Her mouth resembled Old Man Steptoe's.

Although she could pull out her own teeth, she hadn't mastered the art of DIY dentures and consequently sported a black hole interspersed with a few stumps.

Just as we were about to go on air, my producer, Steve Clark, who was watching on a monitor, exclaimed over my earpiece: "Bloody hell, she's brought her pliers with her!"

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As the interview got under way, she explained that the last NHS dentist in her town had closed years ago and she couldn't afford to go private.

A raging toothache had left her with no alternative but to do it herself.

Wasn't it painful? She said that a couple of cans of Special Brew or a swig of Scotch served as an adequate anaesthetic.

"I understand you've got your pliers with you," I said.

"No, don't!" Steve hollered in my ear.

Unfortunately, I couldn't resist. 'Would you like to show us how you do it?' I prompted her.

"She's not going to, is she?" said Steve.

She was, you know. With that, she opened her mouth and began to tug on a loose tooth in her upper gum. It was horrible.

"I think we get the idea," I interrupted her, just as she was about to rip the decayed molar from its socket.

The director, Peter Harris, cut away from the carnage and I could hear appalled groaning from the control room. Peter once worked with the Muppets, but nothing had prepared him for this horror show.

I learnt later that someone else in the gallery had almost fainted. Last thing I saw of the woman, she was being escorted from the studio with blood running down her chin.

It gave a whole new meaning to: "Get your coat, love. You've pulled."

Whatever you've read lately about TV fakery, I guarantee you this was for real.

I'd assumed this woman was a one-off, but it now appears that as many as one in 20 patients has resorted to DIY dental surgery because of the lack of availability of NHS services.

They're not just pulling teeth, they're making their own crowns and plugging gaps with chewing gum. Either their nearest surgery has stopped providing treatment on the NHS or they couldn't find a health service clinic to register with.

All this despite the billions pumped into the NHS by Gordon Brown and a renegotiation of dentists' contracts last year.

Like our superbug-infested hospitals and just about anything else you care to name in the public sector, Labour isn't working.

As Anthony Halperin, of the Patients' Association, said: "It's simply astonishing that in this day and age we have people pulling their own teeth out."

Astonishing, yes, but par for the course. Where once we had backstreet abortionists, we now have backstreet dentists.

Mad Frankie Fraser, enforcer for the Sixties' South London Richardson gang, used to specialise in pulling out rivals' teeth with a pair of pliers. He went to prison for it.

These days, Mad Frankie would be doing a roaring trade.

Trying to get any kind of efficient, civilised service out of this washedup, wasteful government is like pulling teeth.