The Dentist Will See You Now Eventually

Some English people have resorted to pulling out their own teeth because they cannot find -- or cannot afford -- a dentist, a major study has revealed.


Six percent of those surveyed in an English study said they had resorted to dental "self-treatment."

Six percent of those questioned in a survey of 5,000 patients admitted they had resorted to self-treatment using pliers and glue, the UK's Press Association reported.

England has a two-tier dental care system with some dentists offering publicly subsidized treatment through the National Health Service and others performing more expensive private work.

But more than three-quarters of those polled said they had been forced to pay for private treatment because they had been unable to find an NHS dentist. Almost a fifth said they had refused dental treatment because of the cost.

One respondent in Lancashire, northern England, claimed to have extracted 14 of their own teeth with a pair of pliers. In Liverpool, one of those collecting data for the survey interviewed three people who had pulled out their own teeth in one morning.

This is one of the fears of those who oppose nationalized health care solutions. Government health plans are no better than the private insurance plans we have in the US, and while they may claim to be universal, they are also universal in how poor the service will be.

Those who can afford to pay for quality and timely care will continue to get it, while everyone else will suffer along and engage in self-help as a significant number of Britons do annually.