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News of the Day ... In Perspective05/11/2006Do-it-yourself dentistry in Britain In Mexico, jagged, protruding, discolored teeth are called �dientes de ingles.� The bad teeth of the British may be the subject of jokes, but they are a painful reality. Some patients resort to pulling their teeth themselves. Sales of emergency dental supplies for replacing lost fillings or reattaching crowns increased by 40 percent last year. A company called D.I.Y. (Do It Yourself) Dentistry said that British pharmacies sold 6,000 jars of filling replacement and 6,000 crown-and-cap replacement in a week. The National Health Service is supposed to cover dentistry, but no longer even pretends to be able to serve everyone. Discouraged by the assembly-line nature of the job and a new contract that pays them to perform a set number of �units of dental activity per year,� more dentists are leaving the NHS for private practice�some 2,000 in April alone. Some patients go on a dental vacation to Hungary, where four implants cost the equivalent of $5,900 to $8,200, compared to $14,900 to $18,600 if done by a private dentist in Britain. For those who have no choice except the public dentist, �You could argue that Britain has not seen lines like this since World War II,� said Mark Pritchard, a member of Parliament (NY Times 5/7/06) Additional information:
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