I am convinced our dental practice is in reality a launderette for illegal Eastern European immigrants.
Each time I go there I am seen by a different dentist, all of whom are female and Eastern European. The latest is called Ilyiana and is from Bulgaria. Still they're all very nice and seem to do an okay job.
I hate going to the dentist. When I know I have an appointment coming up it hangs like a black cloud over my week, so when I had my check-up on Wednesday and she said one of my old fillings needed replacing and would I like it done there and then, I said yes.
She began to get things ready and I asked, 'Am I having an injection?'
'No, I don't think you'll need it.'
'Are you sure?'
'I think so. You can tell me if it hurts.'
You think so? How sure is that? And by the time it hurts it's too late!
It didn't.
We struggled to find an NHS dentist when our previous one went private. The ones who still took NHS patients were completely full. It became such a scandal/crisis that the local paper started reporting when a new practice was opening but if you didn't phone within 5 minutes of the paper being printed, you'd be too late. Finally we were put on a waiting list and told when we'd been allocated to one. That took about 18 months.
I believe dentists stopped co-operating with the NHS over funding. But I've never seen a poor dentist, have you?
4 comments:
Your attempts to find an NHS dentist sound dreadful. Luckily in Belfast there are still quite a few though some have also gone private. The government's new dental contract was obviously a disaster, I gather they're now drawing up another which hopefully will be more successful. But you're right, most dentists seem to be pretty well-off anyway.
Gee, I think all our dentists have to be through the government somehow. But some people don't have dental insurance so it's very expensive to even get a checkup, let alone have work done. Yesterday, I had my last appointment with my WONDERFUL dentist when she put the on permanent crown (gold, I might add - AARRR). So, all in all, I'd had a cleaning and checkup and a crown done. My insurance covered half of the crown and all of the cleaning - total cost to me was around $450.00 Cdn. Crowns are the most expensive things to have done. I'm like you in that I never like going and my mood changes for several days before. Glad your work didn't hurt. Neither did mine!
When my dentist stopped treating on the NHS the explained it was because they had to charge certain rates for treatments. Using those rates would mean they would have to give patients a sub standard service and they weren't prepared to do that.
Here they don't like giving injections - and so far, I've had no treatment that has hurt.
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