There are pros and cons to both types of system, much of the problems that the NHS has developed seem to be due to trying to have hybrid mongrel system that is part private and part public. Decisions have to be made as to what Britain wants, and then it must be implemented effectively, not this current wishy-washy privatisation by the backdoor. If that is what the British people wish, then let them have a fully privatised very expensive system of healthcare, if they do not then do not privatise the NHS via the backdoor.

If you do not believe me about these figures as to how ill the US healthcare system is, check out reports by Congress and other institutions within the United States, there is an abundance of these reports. The US healthcare system is nothing to admire, the whole system is only designed to benefit those corporate entities that are rich and getting richer, i.e. the insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and HMOs.
Both systems have things to be admired, and both systems have some fairly dramatic failings, and both need some fairly radical surgery if they are to function effectively to benefit the peoples of their respective countries.

I was considering at one time moving up your way!!!!

If you’re registered with a Grampian area dentist then they will not treat you. We someone who took a child in with teeth injuries and they were refused treatment because they have a dentist. It didn’t matter that it was outside their dentist’s hours.

That’s the rule.

Barry, the NHS is not really a socialised health care system, although it was started with that intention. It’s actually a bureacratised, target-focused processing system.

Patients, sorry customers these days, are shuffled through on their ordained tracks, have various things done or ticked off at the duly appointed point, and are then kicked out the back of the machine. The fact that some get lost in the machine, some get crushed in the machine and some even die in the machine is irrelevant - well, unless they clog up the machinery in some bureaucratically inconvenient way.

We’ve pretty much decided to try one more time in a few weeks, then put in a formal complaint. I don’t know if it will have much effect and it will probably cost us our registration with the dentist, but as we’re not getting the treatment it’s probably not too much of a loss.

We’re not sure how we can go private not least because, as Lesley says, the private cover plans only cover you once you’ve paid for and had all existing conditions fixed. So we’d have to pay a lot of money up front (not just for me, but for the OH who has outstanding treatments needed too) and then pay what for us is a sizeable amount each month.

It doesn’t feel like the 21st century, that’s for sure. More like a combination of Kafka and the Dark Ages.

In the USA millions of children are subjected to substandard public schools. Similarly their parents cannot afford private schools and have already paid through the tax system for education.

In the USA many dentists do charitable work for needy patients. Best wishes for finding good care soon.

I really DO sympathise…. as I told you previously, I suffered many absesses when I was younger, through no fault of my own, and I know about the excruciating pain…. and the dreadful headaches.

The most worrying thing about this prolonged lack of proper treatment is that other complications could well be ahead

Wish I had a magic wand to wave for you!

Here in Wales, NHS dentistry is as rare as hens’ teeth these days, and even as pensioners on a fixed income, we have to use Denplan to get any dentistry at all…. but the dentist made sure all our mouth problems were sorted before we joined (at our own expense, of course)

I think that at the end of the days if your abscess worsens from it’s already severe state you will have to go along to A&E and sit and wait. But I daresay even then you will wait for hours and told to go home untreated, but on the other hand you be lucky and get to see the emergency dentist.