I hate my teeth, and I think they hate me too!

I was in the middle of a course of dental treatment last year, when our dentists disappeared. No warning, no notification, they just weren’t there one day, having done a moonlight flit. I don’t think they were very good anyway. Every time you went there all the people were different. I got the impression that the owner hired in foreign dentists for short-term contracts, so you would have a Dane one time, then a Greek and then a South African. Not that I have anything against foreign dentists: my old Ghanaian dentist in London was a nice chap, and I don’t think I have had an English Dentist for well over 20 years.

Anyway, I have been without a dentist until earlier this year, when Jayne found out that there was a surgery in town still accepting new NHS patients and we all registered with him. The new bloke seems OK, and seems to share my opinion of the previous dentist too – he reckons that some of the work I had before will need re-doing. He is particularly suspicious of a bridge that I have.

Today I had an appointment and had to wait ages because a previous patient was late, and then I was in the chair for hours. Literally. I had three teeth in a row prepared for crowns, and now have a huge temporary filling covering all three until the crowns are ready. Jayne was getting quite worried that I was away for so long.

If I had to pick the one thing about my own party which I am least happy with, it would be the provision of dentists. Having said that, the Tories did no better, but this is the sort of thing we expected a Labour government to sort out. There are a few changes being made now, which might help, but this really should have been looked at years ago.