A Bradford woman received an £18,000 compensation payout after her dentist ignored her severe gum disease, resulting in her losing five teeth.
50-year-old Josephine O’Connor had to resort to wearing a COVID facemask to hide her missing teeth, as her dentist – who she had visited all her life – had failed to identify her advanced gum disease.
It was revealed by The Yorkshire Post that Josephine’s issue had been identified by a different dental practice having lost five teeth, to be informed that she would likely lose more of them in future. She has since won £18,000 in an out-of-court settlement after seeking legal assistance.
Josephine said:
“I’ve always made an effort to go to the dentist and I was horrified to be in a position where I was told I needed to have multiple further teeth extractions.
I’ve lost five teeth in my top jaw and had to wait three weeks for a denture to be installed. I was so grateful I was able to wear a Covid facemask at the time to hide it.
“I have to talk to people every day for work and all I wanted to do was hide my face. It drastically affected my diet as I was unable to chew with my front teeth.”
Josephine had been undergoing dental work on her teeth as distantly as 2007, after noticing that one of her teeth was wobbly. She stated:
“As far back as 2007, I attended the practice because I was worried that one of my top teeth was mobile. In 2009 I had a bridge installed on my top jaw to help with multiple loose teeth.
“Over the next few years, I continued to attend regular appointments and experienced bleeding gums and sensitivity as well as issues with crowns falling out, denture issues and one infection that caused so much pain I was unable to sleep at night,”
“By 2020 I started noticing that many of my teeth felt mobile, so I spoke to a friend who was a dental nurse. I ended up visiting a new practice for a second opinion in 2021.”
Upon visiting this new dentist, it became evident that irreversible bone loss and gum disease had occurred and could have been mitigated had action been taken at a much earlier point. Jennifer has since had a partial denture fitted and has become wary of immediately trusting what course of action is recommended by a dentist.
Jennifer’s legal representative stated:
“The distress and pain our client has experienced was completely unnecessary. If the dentists involved had provided more satisfactory treatment, her problems could have been avoided.”
My two-penneth
This is such a sad story for Jennifer, as all her problems could have been quite easily avoided had her initial dentist taken due care and attention regarding the deteriorating condition of her gums.
Though she has since received dentures and a legal payout, this is no compensation for the pain and discomfort and she has experienced over such a long period of time.
Being settled out of court, we can only guess what has happened to the dentist responsible, though unfortunately in lots of these cases they appear to continue to work without any punishment.