Category Archives: Dental News

Universal Dental Care – Is This America’s Future?

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We’ve all heard the horror stories of long lines and rationed care. They serve as a warning to all who consider universal health care a viable option. In the United Kingdom, the ugly truth behind their health care system is evidenced in this recent article showing 8,000 people between two cities still await dental treatment. Nearly 1,500 of them requested an appointment more than 5 months ago. If that isn’t rationed care, it’s hard to imagine what is. Is this America’s future? Hopefully not.

MORE than 8,000 people in York and Selby are still waiting to see an NHS dentist – four times as many as the number of those who have been found a place for teeth treatment.

Figures which will go before City of York Council’s health watchdog this week on NHS dental provision across the two areas show that 1,491 people who put their name down on a dentistry database between five and six months ago have still not been assigned.

A report by NHS North Yorshire and York says there were 8,299 names on the waiting list as of November 10, while between April 1 and that date, dental places were found for 2,057 patients.

In the same period, 9,722 people were added on to the primary care trust’s database – which allows patients throughout the region to register to see an NHS dentist – with dental demand reaching a peak in May when 1,705 patients went on the list.

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Domestic Abuse Victim Gets New Smile

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Lucretia Williams was in a terrible situation nearly ten years ago. Living with an abusive husband, she found herself in a choke hold, desperately biting to free herself. She succeeded, and soon thereafter left with her children to start over. But the fight caused serious damage to her bottom teeth, which eventually had to be removed. But thanks to a charitable program designed to help battered women, Lucretia will get her smile back very soon. The Sun Times tells more:

“I’ve been in the bathroom literally pulling up my bottom lip to cover it,” she said. “It’s hard. I’ll be trying to carry on a conversation knowing it can be seen, it is being seen and that they [the teeth] are not there.”

In about two weeks, Williams will hide her smile no longer. Partnered up with a Chicago dentist through a national program called Give Back A Smile, she has received extensive dental work as well as a new partial denture to fill in her missing teeth.

Give Back A Smile started a decade ago through the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry. The program estimates that 827 domestic violence victims have received treatments worth a total of nearly $8 million.

Participants need to be out of the abusive relationship for at least a year, unless their partner is incarcerated. They also need to meet at least once with a counselor, minister or social worker, who signs off on the application.