It's Like Pulling Teeth

Americans who gripe about health care becoming unaffordable to many can take some solace in this. As they may be aware, the National Health Service (NHS) of the United Kingdom provides free health care to all British citizens. Sounds like a pretty good deal? Well, not so much if you’re waiting for elective surgery, or have a non-emergency medical condition.

If you’re a British citizen in need of dental care, having your teeth pulled can be painful in more ways than one. Falling numbers of state dentists in England has led to some people taking extreme measures, including extracting their own teeth. Others have used superglue to stick crowns back on, rather than paying a bomb for private treatment. One person spoke of carrying out 14 separate extractions on himself with pliers.

A lack of publicly-funded dentists means that growing numbers go private. In a study carried out by members of England's Patient and Public Involvement Forums, 78% of private patients said they were there because they could not find a National Health Service (NHS) dentist, and only 15% because of better treatment.

This sort of reminds me of those old cartoons, where a guy tied a string around a rotten tooth and the other end to a door, which he asked his pal to jerk open – except that I don’t think the former would find it funny.