Tuesday, October 16, 2007

A Dearth Of Dentists In Durham

What in the (socialist) world is going on in England?

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.

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.


Great moments in socialized medicine.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Reminds me of Cast Away when Tom Hanks took out a tooth with an ice skate.

Ellen K said...

Well I see we have some real "Choices" to look forward to.

Anonymous said...

How does less dentists have anything to do with socialized medicine?

Darren said...

Not enough people want to be dentists in a crappy system that doesn't allow them to turn their entrepreneurial skills loose.

allenm said...

Yo! Anon, what do you think dentistry is? It's still medicine even if it's limited to a single orifice and like all medical practice under socialism, availability falls and costs go up.

Anonymous said...

At the risk of stereotyping, after reading this post I was left thinking, "No wonder the British have such bad teeth."

Darren said...

Don't feel bad--I thought the same thing.

Anonymous said...

This is clearly a predictable result from state-run medicine, and we are well on the way.

My wife formerly worked for the single pediatric dentist in our area that would accept patients covered by MediCal (California's somewhat plusher version of Medicaid).

The simple reason why he was the only one that would take those patients is that the reimbursement from the state (often delayed for upwards of six months) was not sufficient to cover the cost of the consumable items used in most procedures, let alone costs to actually pay the staff and cover overhead. If your whole practice is such patients, you go out of business.

Single-payer will inevitably lead to third-world levels of medicine.