Sign up to plan or face dentist KO

DALE Robertson is one of the 1500 patients at Mydentist who has been faced with the stark choice of signing up to a private dental plan or finding a new dentist. He said: “I got a letter telling me my dentist, Amir Nazim, was going private and I had two choices – find another dentist or sign up to one of the dental plans. “It was going to cost £20 a month for a check up and a cleaning session but if you needed any treatment outside of that it would be paid-for treatment. “It sticks in my craw that I have been with this dental practice for years and I didn’t ask to be allocated to this particular dentist, they just divvy them up between them so it is a bit of rotten luck that I happened to be allocated the one who goes private. “He used the NHS to get trained, I paid for that, he’s used the dentist to build up a client list and now he is leaving the NHS to do private care. I thought it was a horrendous way to treat his patients and the surgery have backed it up. “The other dentists in the practice are staying with the NHS but they do not have room to take on his patients. “I asked what they were doing with the 1500 and I was told, ‘We expect a lot of these people will become private patients’. “But what about people like myself who, on a point of principle, don’t want to be a private patient. I have paid my National Insurance for 40-odd years. “They just said: ‘We’re not doing anything about it, you’ll have to find a dentist’. “Let’s be honest, what are my chances? None in Prestwick. “It is a fait accompli – take private care or you don’t have a dentist. In a cost of living crisis this is despicable treatment of loyal customers.”