The Scotsman

Down in mouth

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I am writing to describe the awful situation at present regarding NHS dental care in Scotland. I have also written to my local MSP, Oliver Mundell, who is raising a parliament­ary question re: this matter.

I am not able to receive routine or non-urgent care from my local dental practice. However, the dental practice is able to offer private patients routine and non-urgent care.

I attended the dentist today after being offered an appointmen­t following my raising concerns with them. I was informed that I have two current issues with my teeth requiring attention, one being a tooth needing either filled or deep root filled, the other being a crown that has lessened.

Both these treatments are unable to be offered to NHS patients, but they can be offered to private patients. Therefore I am being discrimina­ted as I can not afford to pay. My dentist agreed that if this work is not undertaken, it will lead to further difficulti­es.

I find this situation appalling. I have worked in the NHS for 34 years as a nurse and never in this time have I come across such discrimina­tion. This is awful and will cause great long-term problems for patients across Scotland who are effectivel­y being prevented from accessing dental care to prevent longterm poor oral health, potential cancer, losing teeth prematurel­y and other issues.

I find it incompatib­le with public heath that such practices can be allowed within the NHS. DAVID STORM Greenlea road, Annan Dumfriessh­ire

Even before this week’s grim news out lining the actual and potential statistics relating to the second wave of Covid19, I have been shocked and depressed to see so much disregard for the current rules being displayed by people of all ages, on buses and trains, in shops, on the street and in other public places.

So far hospital admissions and deaths have mercifully remained at much lower levels than in, say, April, but this could change very quickly if we do have 50,000 new cases a day by the middle of next month.

Is it perhaps time for TV news channels to look again at the shock tactics they employed earlier in the year, when graphic footage of real patients being treated in real Covid wards was broadcast, along with profiles of individual­s who had died from the virus ? As to whether or not these images made people more likely to abide by the rules or not, I am not qualified to say, but I cannot be alone in having been affected by them.

Some will condemn my suggestion as alarmist but I, personally, do already feel more than a little alarmed. BRIDGET M STEVENS Ettrick Road, Edinburgh

Kim S ne pp en, professor of bio complexity at Co pen hagen’s Niels Bohr Institute and an expert in the spread of the coronaviru­s, concludes that Sweden is beating the pandemic with herdi mm unity rather than lock downs. It relied on voluntary social distancing, kept schools and businesses open, with the result that its economy shrank by 7 per cent during the pandemic compared to our catastroph­ic 20 per cent.

Sweden’s infection rate has remained low and stable at a time when other European countries are facing a strong resurgence. In Britain there are 70 cases per 100,000 people compared to just 25 for

every 100,000 in Sweden. The infection rate in France is almost seven times higher than in Sweden and the virus is ten times more prevalent in Spain – both countries had strict lockdowns.

A recent study suggests an infection rate of 40 per cent could be sufficient to give herd immunity. In fact just 20 percent immunity makes a big difference because those infected at the start of the epi

de mi cw ere the most susceptibl­e. It’ s a pity Boris Johnson didn’t keep his nerve and follow the Swedes when Neil Ferguson unleashed his crazy statistics suggesting half a million deaths in the UK.

(REV DR) JOHN CAMERON

Howard Place, St Andrews

With Draconian fines of up to £10,000 liable to be imposed on those opting no t to selfisolat­e (your rep or t, 21 S ep - tember); with the lunacy of the appositely named Operation Moon shot mass- testing project, costing anything up to £100 billion; with Public Health England and now Public Health Scotland having been discovered grossly exaggerati­ng the number of deaths from Covid-19; and with masking mandated only after nearly three months of it being deemed unnecessar­y, it is now clear that we are faced not nearly so much with a health crisis as with one of governance.

GEORGE MORTON Hudson Road, Rosyth

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