Dental Drama

When the government strangles the NHS

My teeth

I’m an NHS dental patient. Unfortunately the practice I am registered with hasn’t had an NHS dentist for some time. Whenever I contact them I get told to ring back in a few months on the off-chance that they have found an NHS dentist under a rock. That means no check ups or treatment for NHS patients. As with much of the UK, getting NHS dental treatment is almost impossible.

One of my wisdom teeth is broken. There’s discomfort and it is getting worse, which suggests it needs urgent treatment to stop it coming away completely. To me, that’s an emergency. And not one I am keen to deal with, since I have a phobia of dentists and needles due to distressing childhood experiences. I have to take prescribed relaxants before even going to the dentist

The practice told me to ring up at 8am the next day and make an emergency appointment. I’d have to pay for it, of course, even though I am one of their NHS patients.

Note that this would just be for the dentist to examine my tooth – I’d still have to wait for proper treatment and follow-up when (or if ever) an NHS dentist appeared. The emergency appointment wouldn’t be to do anything permanent.

But when I rang my practice this morning for an emergency appointment they refused, and said a broken wisdom tooth doesn’t count as an emergency. Well, not unless I am screaming in pain, crawling on the ground begging someone to end my life, and my face has swollen to the size of a grapefruit. (That’s the implication of their refusal.)

While I was still taking that in, they added that I should just take painkillers and wait until (or if ever) they eventually get an NHS dentist.

Unbelievable.

We’d like to think we live in an advanced, civilised, caring society, but obviously anyone who isn’t rich knows what a myth that is. So it comes to this, that in 2024 the dental industry’s advice for serious issues is “take painkillers indefinitely”. Or the other option they push patients towards: expensive private treatments and plans. So I can suffer, or pay them lots of money. Sounds like a Mafia protection racket.

I told them the issue is concern about the broken tooth deteriorating: that is the emergency, and painkillers are not a fix, but they just kept repeating the same line (three times: it was like communicating with an emotionless robot) until I hung up.

Saving The NHS – A Modest Proposal

And in the UK, no one seems to take responsibility for this situation faced by countless millions. I’m always hearing of experiences like mine. Hey, the other day one of my family had to go to the emergency department of a hospital … and had to wait for eight hours in a stuffy waiting room with fifty other people, including a young man covered in blood from a motorcycle accident who was told he would have to wait four and a half hours to be seen (apparently he just left).

The Conservatives have been destroying and privatising the health service for decades (presumably so they can focus on sending dick pics). And Labour are no better. Now that Labour has thrown out members who care about socialism and social justice, they’ve basically become baby conservatives under pro-genocide Starmer (an ex-human rights lawyer, which would be laughable if the topic wasn’t so serious). We need radical change, and we won’t get it from red or blue.

You know what would lead to improvement in the NHS? A law that all MPs and civil servants must use NHS healthcare and dentistry. We’d soon see funding going back into it and the service improving.

Hey, while we’re at it, make it a law that they also have to send their children to state schools, not private ones. And they have to use standard public transport where possible. That would fix education and public transport too.

While those in charge live lives separate from normal people, they’ll never act in our interests.

Update 2024-05-17

I rang the NHS emergency dental number at 9am and left a message (you can’t speak to anyone directly). No response. They got back to me after 5pm, only because I rang them and left another message. Was it worth the wait?

No.

They told me that, because I am registered with a dentist, they can’t help. I have to go to the dentist.

I pointed out I had been to my dentist, and they wouldn’t treat my emergency, and had no NHS dentists at present. My dentist had just told me to take painkillers, possibly forever.

The NHS emergency dental person’s response was “Tough”, basically. Oh, she did advise I could maybe buy some kind of kit and do a filling myself, as if this was medieval times.

I’d waited all day for that wonderfully unhelpful piece of advice. It’s falsely assumed that if you are registered, you will be treated.

What a shit show. It’s barbaric that you can have a broken tooth and no way to get it fixed on the NHS. Well, there is one fix: you have to lie about your symptoms and play up the amount of pain you are in. This is the crap situation our politicians (who probably all have cushy private healthcare) deem is acceptable for everyone apart from them and the well-off.

I also tried the 111 emergency number, which was given to me as my last option. After forty+ minutes listening to shit music and a message telling me to wait on the line, someone finally answered. I then spent over twenty minutes giving them details. Then they transferred me to someone else, a dental specialist, who made me repeat everything all over again. After another twenty minutes they told me they wouldn’t do anything or book me in for emergency treatment, but would give me some “self-care advice” such as taking painkillers.

I hung up. Yes, I am angry. And it’s ironic that all this wasted time ringing the NHS services has left me depressed. I can see why people just give up when faced with such a lack of care from the NHS, HMRC, DWP or any other government department.

No politicians will take responsibility for the dire situation normal people face with regards to healthcare and dentistry. Conservatives wanted to destroy the NHS, and they have proceeded to do so, aided by the politicians from other parties who don’t care about what normal people have to put up with.

My “modest proposal”, above, seems even more relevant.

Promoted by Karl Drinkwater (Green Party) at The Gate, Keppoch Street, Cardiff CF24 3JW.
Disclaimer.