Status: 09.08.2022 04:11
Great Britain suffers from a massive shortage of dentists. Even children are no longer accepted in many practices. In desperation, some patients try to treat themselves – with drastic means.
By Gabi Biesinger, ARD Studio London
The British NHS National Health Service is completely overwhelmed. The BBC revealed that nine out of ten dental practices in England are no longer accepting new patients. The result is pain and desperate self-help measures by people who cannot afford private treatment.
SWR Logo Gabi Biesinger ARD Studio London
Denise Pile is having soup for lunch again – what a surprise, she jokes. The Cornish pensioner really stopped laughing a long time ago: she’s been waiting for artificial teeth for four years. She has almost no molars, at least incisors, but even they wobble, she tells the BBC:
“I can’t bite into anything anymore, not even chopped tomatoes or cucumbers. It’s all too hard. After fifty years of working and paying taxes, it wouldn’t be asking too much just to get some.”
Huge wait times or no commitments
Denise Pile, like many people on pensions and low incomes, cannot afford dental care out of her own pocket. And dental appointments, subsidized by the SNS and requiring only a small co-payment, have become a rarity.
Nine out of 10 NHS practices across England are not seeing new adult patients, BBC research shows. Eight out of ten also do not adopt new children. And even for registered patients, the wait times are enormous.
The Dental Association complains that many dentists are overworked and can only treat a certain number of patients with the flat fees paid by the NHS.
Shawn Charlwood of the British Dental Association calculates that state-funded lump sums would only cover about half the population.
Many dentists have given up
The pandemic has exacerbated the situation due to closed practices and lack of check-up appointments. The Department of Health says it has invested a further £50m to reduce coronavirus waiting lists. But there are simply not enough doctors.
Around ten per cent of dentists have abandoned NHS practices in recent years and only treat privately – also because they do not see their complex work being sufficiently appreciated by the NHS flat rate fees. But Shawn Charlwood believes there is another reason for the lack of dentists:
“After the Brexit decision, European dentists left the country for their homeland and didn’t come back. There are thousands of them, and that made the situation even worse.”
Self-treatment with tweezers
Joshua Keeling was asked by his partner to pull the tooth out with pliers because she couldn’t take the pain anymore. A dire situation. That’s why he has now started a subscription campaign for better service. 180,000 people have already signed.
But until something changes, people will continue to work on their teeth with files and pliers and turn to dangerous self-help, explains Louise Ansari of Healthwatch England:
“People live in pain and fear, they can’t eat or speak properly. And in their desperation they put synthetic resin plugs on their gums with superglue.”
Dental emergency in England
Gabi Biesinger, ARD London, 08/08/2022 20:49