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English 'pull own teeth' as dental service decays Mon Oct 15, 7:19 AM ET

LONDON (AFP) - 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.

One researcher involved in compiling the study -- carried out by members of England's Patient and Public Involvement Forums -- came across three people in one morning who had pulled out teeth themselves.

Dentists are also concerned about the trend.

Fifty-eight percent said new dentists' contracts introduced last year had made the quality of care worse, while 84 percent thought they had failed to make it easier for patients to find care.

Almost half of all dentists -- 45 percent -- said they no longer take NHS patients, while 41 percent said they had an "excessive" workload. Twenty-nine percent said their clinic had problems recruiting or retaining dentists.

"These findings indicate that the NHS dental system is letting many patients down very badly," said Grant.

"It appears many are being forced to go private because they don't want to lose their current trusted and respected dentist or because they just can't find a local NHS dentist."

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Ah, the beauty of universal healthcare.

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Ah, the beauty of universal healthcare.

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My sediments exactly.

Posting a pic of me tailgating with you all is low

Had the exact same problem but thanks to some quick thinking I managed to find a new dentist!

Our local dentist went private, greedy bastards

So he mucked up a bit ... big deal.

He's such a bottom feeder.

You guys are so tough ... a guy makes one mistake and everyone wants to silt his throat.

We just like to go with the flow.

Hopefully this doesn't result in any board suspensions.

I'm sorry I opened my mouth.

gingivitis to turn this into a pun thread?

The pun topic is "rivers and sediment" ... there's no need to meander into different pun topics.

AHHH the part that some americans are ignoring on this board is that many americans are doing the same thing Most of the health insurance in the good old USA does not include dental insurance.) A FACT that those with dental insurance wish to ignore

I didn't have dental insurance til last year, and I still went 2x a year. Saves a ton in the long run.

Why did the title of this thread conjure up images of Austin Powers in my head?

Nope I don't want the government screwing things up even more with socialized medicine.

Don't they have any schools that do it for half the cost? I have insurance now but still go to CWRU to keep that deductible low

I wish. Unfortunately, the cost of dental care is getting fairly outrageous. I recently went to the dentist and was told that the repair cost for one tooth was going to cost me over $3000. That's not to pull it, just to fix it. And that does not include the cleaning or fillings for any of the rest (which they wouldn't do at the same time and required another visit and of course another office visit fee...!)

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I recently went to the dentist and was told that the repair cost for one tooth was going to cost me over $3000. That's not to pull it, just to fix it.

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Pulling it would be much cheaper.

It's getting outrageous because the malpractice insurance for doctors, nurses and dentists are getting outrageous. They aren't going to eat that cost they are going to pass it onto us.

The only thing I want the Feds to do with our health care is put a cap on lawsuits. There is no reason a person making 60k a year should receive a 100 million dollar settlement. That's outrageous, and is hurting our health care. I understand if a doctor or other health professional messes up and hurts someone or god forbid kills someone the person or family should be paid for thier loss. But a lot of those payments are outrageous.

Now I'm not naive, I know there are other problems but this is a big one. If tort reform is not put into place they will be forcing us into Federal Health care because by the time my daughter is out working Malpractice Insurance will be too expensive for our current system to operate. We won't have enough doctors that will be able to stay in business. Doctors won't want to spend 100's of thousands of dollars and 8 - 12 years of school to make chump change.

I agree but it has to be done in a way that legit lawsuits are not scared into not suing because if the Doctor or Hospital hires some $100k lawyer to defend them and win the plaintiff wouldn't be able to pay the penalty of losing.

I always thought a "loser MIGHT pay" system would work best. Instead of two possible outcomes (liable, not liable) ... the third option of "extorted?" would find completely in favor of the defense, and force the loser to pay most or all of the legal fees incurred by the defendant.

It wouldn't even have to be employed, but the fact that there's that potential big hammer of a penalty looming over gold-digging plaintiffs, it would be enough to ward off a lot of these obviously frivolous lawsuits.

The other option would be to just jack up the cost of filing a lawsuit (new tax maybe?) so that people would stop treating it like a cheap lottery ticket.

I just think they need a stricter review process up front of what goes to court and what doesn't. Any penalty which could force the injured to pay the doctor/hospitals legal bills would prevent a lot of people from suing, even the legit ones.

I agree sort of ... in engineering there is a thing called "standard of care" and I would assume that some similar principal should apply to medicine. If use normally accepted practices and apply them to a problem and they just don't work, it's not your fault.

Sorry, life is not an episode of House where 20 minutes before death they discover a colony of rare African dung beetles in the backyard and immediately know exactly what the cure is for the mysterious illness, give one injection, and watch the person walk out of the hospital the next day....

I was thinking more along the lines of malpractice claims than regular internal audits... If the doctors followed SOP, then they should not be at risk of a lawsuit.

I never said a thing about internal audits. The courts would follow the exact same standards of care for each diagnosis and procedure as JCAH, CMS, the Medical Board, etc., that was my point.

Sorry, I misunderstood.