Burning Slowly

A random tale of a random poet living a random life. (Many of the pictures are mine but my apologies to the owners of the ones that I have blatantly ripped off. If you are really unhappy about me using your images, email me and I will remove them. If not, thanks for the loan. Outcast Poet)

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Location: Oxford, United Kingdom

I write real poems, and play real music.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Grinding My Teeth


The tooth I broke in half on New Years Eve has exposed me to the murky money-driven underbelly of the dental world and I am not very impressed with what I have seen. After getting a temporary fix from the emergency NHS dentist for £15.50, I registered, on their recommendation, with what seems to be the only NHS dentist in Oxfordshire that is taking on new patients. The outfit is in Kidlington but I will name no names. The surly receptionist took my details, logged them on a computer and told me to call back in a week’s time to make an appointment. Two weeks later I was sitting in the chair! A woman with her fair hair tightly plaited and tied round the back of her head spoke to me in an eastern European accent. She was of a stocky build and stocky character; she looked like she could have been a ‘dentist for the SS in a black and white WW2 movie. Her assistant kept a low profile, logging my fillings as she called them out. I had explained about the temporary filling in the broken tooth and said that was the main reason why I was there, and that also I would like to get my gnashers cleaned and polished.

“Ve vill need to x-ray your teeth” she said expressionlessly “See if zere is any root canal verk to be done”

I half expected her eyes to light up when she mentioned ‘root canal verk’ but they didn’t. She stuck an uncomfortable piece of film, clipped onto a frame, between my gums and the inside of my cheek, and then they both shot outside while the x-ray camera fired its rays. How harmful is that stuff? She returned and told me how teeth cleaning was no longer available on the NHS: “Zey no longer pay for it”. I was going to have to make a private appointment with the hygienist. The broken tooth was the most disturbing:

“First ve vill check for root. Zen if ze root is OK ve can cap ze tooth. Zere are two options available for you. One is ze NHS tooth but zis vill be ugly silver and ve vill need to grind down half your tooth, £200. Ze other is only available private, it vill be white, and ve vill not have to do any grrrrinding, £375” She rolled the ‘r’s on the word ‘grinding’.

Apart form the money, it was a no brainer. “I’ll have the private one” I replied almost immediately, “definitely no grrrrinding?”

“If root is good ve vill fix tooth without grrrinding” She rolled them again. “You make appointment for fitting and appointment with hygienist for ze cleaning”

I signed the NHS attendance slip, I presume this was so they could get their massive subsidy from the government, and was back in front of the surly receptionist. Next appointment for the dentist was in two weeks and next available hygienist appointment was the next day or 9 months later! I booked the next day, Saturday, in the hope that I could get someone to cover my shift in the pub, and took the dentist booking for two weeks time.

The hygienist was Irish. She picked, scraped and polished away at my bottom set of teeth, asking me questions that I was not able to answer with a mouth full of dental hygiene equipment. After 15 minutes she told me that my allocated appointment time was up and I would need to make another visit to get the top set cleaned. Back at the desk the surly receptionist told me that it was £37 for today and next available appointment was in October, 9 months time! I protested that only half the work had been done and eventually she booked me in for the following Saturday; which would be another £37. So, to get my teeth cleaned it had cost me £74 and loss of earnings from work. And I don’t even think it was a good job!

The weeks passed and I was back in the chair with the dentist:

“And vy are you here today?” She said sounding puzzled and opening up my file on the computer.

“You are the dentist that asked me to make an appointment; I was hoping you could tell me”

She frantically flicked through lots of brightly coloured computer screens trying to find out why I was there. I decided to help her out and recapped:

“I broke a tooth on New Year’s Eve, had a temporary filling from the emergency dentists, registered with you to get it sorted, and last visit you took some x-rays so you could check ’ze root’, and I agreed on a private £375 job that definitely required no ‘grrrinding’”

“You say ve x-ray? How many x-ray ve do?”

“I don’t know” I replied “This is not the most relaxing environment to be in and I wasn’t counting. I thought you would have a record of how many you took.”

“I vill get ze x-rays” She left the room for several minutes and returned with a pile of long white envelopes.

“Ah, so many patients ve have, too many” she said almost to herself. “zer are none of yours here, I can not find zem”

She left again and returned with her low-profile assistant, who looked like he was doing a time share with the other dentists at the practice. About 10 or 15 minutes later she produces two little squares of film showing the x-ray images of someone’s teeth; by this time I wasn’t convinced they were even mine.

“Did you get ze quotation that vas posted to you” She asked.

“No” I said “we agreed the £375 and no grinding at my last visit”

“You did not get ze quotations?”

“NO!” I was desperately trying not to sound too aggressive. I was after all lying on my back in a chair, surrounded by implements of extreme torture.

“I vill print it off for you to collect on your vay out. Make two appointments for fitting”

Was that it? The assistant was thrusting a blue NHS slip in front of me to sign.

“What is that you are asking me to sign” I asked.

“It is a standard form zat you must sign so NHS give us our money” I am sure I heard a faint click of heels smacking together as I left the room.

Back at the desk I asked for my printed quote which arrived to say I had to pay £449. I queried it, telling the surly receptionist that I had already paid for the hygienist work. It was another 20 minutes before the issue was resolved. It should have been £375. Ok that was better.

“The dentist asked me to make two appointments with you for fitting the tooth” I told the surly receptionist.

“First you pay us £375” she said “no work can be done without payment first”

“I don’t have the means on me to pay that at the moment, I just want to make the appointments and I will call in tomorrow with the money” I didn’t go into any reasons like I had left my wallet at home, etc.

“First you pay us £375” she repeated “no work can be done without payment first”

“But I am not asking for any work to be done before I pay, I just want to make the appointments” I protested.

“We can’t make you any appointment without payment first” she said in the surliest way she could.

“Then its time for me to find another dentist.”

“I’m sorry?” she questioned, as if you couldn’t believe her ears. I could see her mind working ‘how could he possibly think of going somewhere else, who does he think he is?’

My mind was thinking: ‘I really have had it with these cowboys; surely there must be
any number of private dentists that would cap a tooth for £375?’


I didn’t give the receptionist a chance to react of say any more, I just turned and left.

There must be other private dentists that will cap a tooth for £375, mustn’t there?