The trick of pulling teeth

I’M concerned about how hard it can be to find an emergency dentist during holiday times.

A family member needed a dentist on the morning of December 24 – which was not yet the Christmas holiday, but had great difficulty finding one, despite being on the phone and computer for a couple of hours trying to find help.

The “emergency” phone answerers tried to be helpful and were genuinely sorry that they couldn’t help.

We heard personally of a young child with special needs who was in great pain for several days in the week leading up to Christmas, before dental help could be found. There used to be a dental hospital in Leicester Square, near Leicester Square station, which was always open for emergencies, but sadly it was shut down by the authorities years ago.

It was reassuring for people to know it was there. It’s strange that in these ‘high tech’ days, emergency facilities seem to get worse.

We assume everything is working alright until we actually need help! There’s also the extremely high cost of dentistry now. We met someone just before Christmas who’d had a painful tooth extracted at a cost of £100, because a root canal treatment would have cost a staggering £1,000. He was told this root treatment may not work and that the tooth might need further treatments at an additional cost!

Many private dental costs are out of all proportion - a thousand pounds would pay for a family holiday! After closing on Decembe 23, many dentists were shut until January 2, which is a long wait for anyone in pain.

I don’t blame dentists for wanting a good break, but dental officials should ensure that local areas have an emergency dentist readily available and easy to locate, during holiday periods.

Name and address witheld