Dublin dentist don't give a damn!!!!!

talla10

I am absolutely furious at the moment. I have a suspected dental abscess and tried this morning making an appointment with new dentist as my dentist is currently closed for 2 days.

I rang around SIX dentist practises asking for an emergency appointment and I was refused as I wasent a client and it was insufficient notice!! All practises I rang specifically they cater for emergency cases but when I brought that point up they kept repeating they had no appointments. I asked if I could leave my contact details in case of a cancellation 3 said no they wouldn't have a cancellation!!

I had heard poor Irish dentists were having a hard time of it since PRSI stopped for dental work but on my experience I dont believe a word of it!!!

Sorry for rant but i am genuinely disgusted!!!

helimachoptor

talla10 wrote: »

I am absolutely furious at the moment. I have a suspected dental abscess and tried this morning making an appointment with new dentist as my dentist is currently closed for 2 days.

I rang around SIX dentist practises asking for an emergency appointment and I was refused as I wasent a client and it was insufficient notice!! All practises I rang specifically they cater for emergency cases but when I brought that point up they kept repeating they had no appointments. I asked if I could leave my contact details in case of a cancellation 3 said no they wouldn't have a cancellation!!

I had heard poor Irish dentists were having a hard time of it since PRSI stopped for dental work but on my experience I dont believe a word of it!!!

Sorry for rant but i am genuinely disgusted!!!

Why dont you call some more dentists?

hattoncracker

Dublin dental hospital has an A@E type place!

Meesared

Have to admit i fail to see the problem here. You think you would get an appointment at a GPs you are not a patient at, at short notice?, no of course not, same goes here.

themadchef

talla10 wrote: »

I am absolutely furious at the moment. I have a suspected dental abscess and tried this morning making an appointment with new dentist as my dentist is currently closed for 2 days.

I rang around SIX dentist practises asking for an emergency appointment and I was refused as I wasent a client and it was insufficient notice!! All practises I rang specifically they cater for emergency cases but when I brought that point up they kept repeating they had no appointments. I asked if I could leave my contact details in case of a cancellation 3 said no they wouldn't have a cancellation!!

I had heard poor Irish dentists were having a hard time of it since PRSI stopped for dental work but on my experience I dont believe a word of it!!!

Sorry for rant but i am genuinely disgusted!!!

Clearly youre in pain. Can almost see it seeping through the post, and a little on the angry side too possibly after all those phone calls so maybe take a breath (or some over the counter pain killers) and try to calm down a bit.

Making more calls if youre agitated may make you a little snappy on the phone and that wont do your cause any favours.

So you rang 6 practices and all of them told you that they couldint see you. In these times, considering the amount of pain you are in, and the fact that your own dentist is on holidays i woulda thought someone might have had a heart, or an extra bill to be paid.

On your next call can you not mention the fact that you have rang 6 others and plead? I know i would.

I think people forget what it's like to be in pain. An absess on a tooth is a pure.... well, it's not nice. Head in to the A+E place if you cant get any where for decent pain meds. Dont sit there getting more angry, remember it is Friday after all and alot of places will be booked up for the day and closing i suppose at 5pm.

talla10

Firstly my point is dentists I rang all clearly advertised emergency dental care, no appointment needed, same day appointment etc. What truly angered me is that not one was understanding it was obvious they couldn't care less about pain I'm in and didn't even try and be helpful.

And now I've witnessed first hand why the dental forum has a bad reputation. Posters and Mods with their unhelpful, smug and biased comments is no wonder people are seeking alternative care in Europe with 'professional' attitudes displayed here.

Of course I exclude the last poster from my criticism at least there was one person who had common sense & decent advice!!!

helimachoptor

talla10 wrote: »

Firstly my point is dentists I rang all clearly advertised emergency dental care, no appointment needed, same day appointment etc. What truly angered me is that not one was understanding it was obvious they couldn't care less about pain I'm in and didn't even try and be helpful.

And now I've witnessed first hand why the dental forum has a bad reputation. Posters and Mods with their unhelpful, smug and biased comments is no wonder people are seeking alternative care in Europe with 'professional' attitudes displayed here.

Of course I exclude the last poster from my criticism at least there was one person who had common sense & decent advice!!!

Op no dentist is just an emergency dentist.
You need to be aware that they will also have patients and they need to take into consideration putting you at the top of the Q may result in them losing one of their regular patients.

And hold on, how is me saying why dont you call more dentists unhelpful or smug?

Hattoncracker said go to the Dental hospital A&E
Meesared is fairly spot on if a bit blunt. I called my GP with a fairly serious problem a while ago and i had to wait til the next day.



Ig you have called 6 dentists and you cant get an appointment and the issue is as serious as you say, then you shoudnt be wasiting time moaning about it here, you should be calling every dentist in the phonebook until you can get an appointment with one.

lexa

The Dental Council’s code of ethics states the following:

Emergency care
3.4 We expect you to make reasonable
arrangements to give your patients access to
emergency out-of-hours care.

3.5 You must always respond to a dental
emergency even if the emergency involves
patients who do not normally attend your
practice.

Does the OP’s current dentist have arrangements in place? It would seem that they should. Also the other dentists the OP contacted should provide care in an emergency regardless of whether the patient is an existing patient or not.

I guess the question is what is deemed an emergency? I would think that a patient being in a lot of pain would be an emergency.

Also I would assume it’s reasonable to expect dentists to comply with their own Code of Ethics. Clearly dentists refusing to see a patient in pain because they are not existing patients would not be complying with the spirit of the code.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Ok folks a few thing up until now no dentist has posted. If you want good answers to questions stop giving out to the dentists on the forum we give our advice despite the abuse we get for not saying what people want to hear. People go abroad because it's cheap, you can find a dentist of any nationality in Ireland. This discussion is off topic here and us well covered on the forum.

Op Friday is a bad day to have an emergency. Dentists tend to be booked up. You can only squeeze so many people in before patient care suffers. I had emergencies call me today but I am on a days holidays booked for several months. I am working tomorrow but that doesn't work for some.

Dentists ethical obligations only apply to patients of record of the practice. Be angry with you regular dentist for not having suitable cover. If you are in dire trouble pm me and I can tell you a place to go, it may not be convenient but it will sort you out. The threats of dental tourism I shall put down to frustration.


There many dentists and chains that always have spare capacity. There are dedicated emergency clinics open all day every day of the week, you can access swift care if you need it

Good luck op and everyone else relax.

georgieporgy

Too bad I didn't see this thread earlier (busy working) or I would have offered to treat you. I'm a little bit outside Dublin but not too much.

If you haven't been sorted yet let me know and I'll see you this evening. I'll keep an eye on the thread in case you post.

lexa

Not to be pedantic Fitzgeme – but point 3.5 seems fairly clear and indicates that ethical obligations extend beyond patients of your own practice in an emergency. i.e. “You must always respond to a dental emergency even if the emergency involves patients who do not normally attend your practice”
OP - hope you got yourself sorted.

Dianthus

Under the NHS, a dental emergency is classified as an urgent/ life threatening condition- ie: uncontrollable bleeding, trauma(jaw fractures, ect), or a severe infection(difficulty swallowing/breathing, fever ect) requiring intravenous antibiotics in hospital. Toothache per se is not considered an emergency in the UK.
Also, as a previous poster mentioned, if I was in severe pain, I wouldn't stop after 6 dentists, I'd ring 60 if I needed to, until such a time as I found one who had space in their book. Maybe you were just unlucky that the dentists you rang were already chocablock with other emergency patients. Hopefully you got sorted in the end.

Phoenix Park

lexa wrote: »

Not to be pedantic Fitzgeme – but point 3.5 seems fairly clear and indicates that ethical obligations extend beyond patients of your own practice in an emergency. i.e. “You must always respond to a dental emergency even if the emergency involves patients who do not normally attend your practice”
OP - hope you got yourself sorted.

glad i work 24 hours a day,everyday, and don't need to eat or sleep, otherwise i wouldn't be able to respond to every emergency

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Lexa the OP has plenty of access to emergency care, you cannot force a dentist to see you. Most will but not to the detriment of their regular patients. There are many dedicated emergency clinics in the country, all they do is see emergency patients without appointment, to be pedantic this fulfills the dentist obligations under 3.5 there. The dentist does not personally have to proved the emergency treatment but needs to let the person know where they can get it (respond to the emergency does not mean you cancel regular patients to squeeze in somebody you don't know who lets be honest may or may not bother to turn up...happens a lot with emergencies) .

There is a clinic run by one of the medical insurance companies that is open 365 days a year and take people without appointment, what more can you want?

lexa

Phoenix Park – in fairness the OP was looking for assistance during the standard operating hours of the dentists he contacted and not at night/weekends/holidays.

Dianthus – as stated previously “emergency” isn’t defined. I imagine this principles based approach is to allow dentists exercise judgement. I would hope that most dentists would not consider an emergency along the lines of the narrow NHS definition because it would be rare enough that a dental emergency would be life threatening as opposed to a medical emergency. If I thought I had a life threatening condition I would be seeking the advice of a medical doctor and not a dentist. As a layperson I would have no way of knowing what is serious or not without the advice of a qualified professional. Perhaps in the OP’s case, being seen next week won’t adversely affect his prognosis, but without being seen he wouldn’t know. If it were me and I had serious pain and discomfort and thought I risked losing a front tooth, I would consider it to be serious enough and would want to be seen.

Fitzgeme – some fair points raised. There is no doubt that some patients do take the piss and don’t show up for appointments. As you stated, most dentists would have acted in good faith and seen him rather than allow him to suffer for a few days. I would have assumed this to be the norm. In the OP’s case it appears that he wasn’t being seen because he wasn’t an existing patient and this seems a little unfair in the circumstances and not in keeping with the spirit of the code. Perhaps he was just unlucky that he contacted the 6 dentists that didn’t give a ****e, and didn’t advise where he might be able to obtain treatment coupled with the fact that his existing dentist didn't have out of hours cover. Perhaps as a dentist it might be obvious to you where treatment might be obtained but as a layperson this is not always clear.

ovalu

lexa wrote: »

If I thought I had a life threatening condition I would be seeking the advice of a medical doctor and not a dentist..

If you had a life threatening dental condition you'd be better off with a dentist

Dianthus

Waaah. I give up. It wouldn't have been that the 6 dentists contacted "didn't give a sh$$", but rather they simply did not have the space in the appointment book. It is impossible to magic up time where none is available. It's not like a 5 or 10minute slot, on average you're looking at half an hour to treat someone.
We saw 3 emergency patients (all "new") earlier today, and had a 15 minute lunchbreak..... presumably they were delighted to be seen& relieved of pain. However, as a result, had anyone else rang up with pain, regular patient or no, they would have had to seen by someone else. This doesn't mean we don't care about patients, simply that the dentist is not God.
Though as a point of interest, dentists do detect&/treat life-threatening conditions. Oral cancer, cellulitis, cysts, gum disease(there's been a proven link between this and heart disease, as well as miscarriage).
The saddest case I saw in practice was 4 years ago, involved a man who'd been treated by his GP for months for a lesion on his tongue, which by the time he eventually deigned to see a dentist (GP assumed a higher position of authority& knowledge, didn't deem it necessary to recommend a dentist to double check), was advanced oral cancer. Prognosis at that stage was terminal. Non smoker, non drinker, former professional athlete.

lexa

Ovalu, assume you’re a dentist. Are life threatening dental conditions fairly rare (in context of needing emergency care)

If I had trouble swallowing/breathing/fever etc I would go to a hospital and assume be treated by a doctor. I imagine this would be more appropriate than attending a dental surgery in the circumstances.

Dianthus, no doubt dentists do detect conditions such as oral cancer and have a part of play in the overall healthcare context. I was responding in the context of "emergency" care as you had set out above.

BostonB

I thought the Dental Hospital catered for emergencies.

georgieporgy

OP hasn't come back to the thread so I assume he has been sorted .I'm off to bed now.

Big_G

A few points -
1. I am open to correction but AFAIK there is only one life threatening dental emergency and that is Ludwigs Angina. It is rare - Queen Victoria apparently died of it though. It is a board like swelling of the floor of the mouth caused by dental infection. It requires drainage, IV antibiotics and occasionally early intubation to prevent asphyxiation due to airway closure.

2. The dental council code of ethics is a set of guidelines that dentists are expected to adhere to. Guidelines.

3. What most patients view as an emergency a dentist will not view as same. A significant amount of my emergencies are broken teeth, sensitive teeth, subclinical issues expand other non-emergencies. I will never refuse to see a genuine emergency but the amount of people who abuse the system by ringing up and saying they are in agony when really all they want is to be seen urgently is shocking. My staff are generally poor at spotting the fibbers so I end up spending a lot of time reassuring patients who have very little wrong. I am not saying that that is what is happening with the op, but as stated Friday and Monday are the busiest days for emergencies and so there simply may have been no time left. There are other dental council obligations that must be met before a patient can be seen such as having staff present (as recent court cases will show) and others.

4. Whilst I agree with the dental council guidelines, nobody talks about the issue of personal patient responsibility. I will see patients of record before I will see the others. They are the ones who come for their checkups and I feel a personal responsibility to them which I feel overrides my professional responsibility. The dental council may not agree with this interpretation. It takes a minimum of twelve months in an adult between the onset of decay and the onset of infection and usually many, many years before that is the case. Similarly for other oral infections. So if the patient had been an attender, it would have been likely that the issue would have been treated before it became an emergency. That is where the patient must take responsibility.

I have the utmost sympathy for the OP. Dental pain can be very severe and emotionally destabilising. It is unusual to not find a dentist in six that could not see an emergency. I'm sure the dental council wouldn't be entirely happy about this. It is what it is. If you interpret the dental council code it would have dentists out of their beds in the middle of the night to treat patients. It just isn't practical. And there are other frontline provisions in place for that.

I might point out that a lot of the time the staff (who are not dentists) on the desk in a practice will do anything to avoid staying late on Friday. Or any day. It annoys me, I've not been in a position to discipline them in the past but it happens all the time.

With regard to the op you have had an offer of treatment and I'm sure therewould have been others that would not have seen you stuck including myself (but I'm in Australia).

Hope it all turned out ok.

Big_G

I just read back the threads and realised op was not in pain and the suspected abscess was draining. Not massively emergent but it would have taken two minutes for the dentist to examine diagnose and give a script until more advanced treatment could be performed.

I think this a case of either poor communication or poor desk staff triage. Or possibly OP has a medical card and the dentist has lost his goodwill to that system. Not condoning it, just saying.

uberalles

Balally swiftcare have after hours and weekend dentists. Prices are a bit more than usual but if you are in pain after hours they may be the answer

uberalles

Google swift clinic balally and there is another on north side I'm not sure about country locations. Vhi will cover some cost if you have it. Good luck OP