Britain's most shaggable blogger needs help...
Although the dentists are now calling themselves “Dr”, we doctors do not call ourselves “dentist”. We did have a compulsory one week lecture course during medical training covering the whole of dentistry, but I have no desire to get out my Black and Decker and attempt some root-canal treatment.
I do however treat patients who need root-canal treatment. I’m really not supposed to but when someone comes in with a swollen, hot jaw and a molar, oozing pus, that looks like the black hole of Calcutta, it is hard not to give them appropriate antibiotics and analgesia. These are the people who never go to dentists. Some are too frightened. Some cannot be bothered. Some genuinely cannot afford it. For some, dental hygiene is not on the agenda. They do not even own a toothbrush. They wait until their teeth fall out, and then get dentures.
And, yes, I tell them to go to the dentist and, no, most of them do not. Even if they are in pain. Too expensive. Not as expensive as that week in Torremolinos maybe, but in this country we do not understand the concept of paying for medical or dental care.
But what do you do if, despite good dental hygiene, you need some really expensive dental treatment and genuinely cannot afford it? In “a blogger who is in need of some sympathy and succour...” The DK spearheads the campaign to raise money to help Trixy, “the most shaggable blogger of 2008”. Trixy, of “Is there more to life than shoes”, needs some expensive dental treatment and cannot afford it. She does not mince her words:
I've just been quoted a huge amount of money for urgent medical treatment which I can't afford to pay because all my savings and every penny I can save in the next few months is going to pay my tax bill so some benefit scrounging scum can have the same treatment for free. That's the reality of live in Brown's Britain. And it will be the same in Cameron's Britain or Clegg's Britain….Those wishing to contribute to the fund can do so here.
Full story in “No light at the end of the tunnel…” by Trixy.
Whatever happened to our Welfare State?
Labels: Is there more to life than shoes, NHS dentistry, root canal treatment, trixy, welfare state
24 Comments:
That video held me in fascinated horror.
But, "shaggable"?
Dr Crippen, I am surprised at you.
Gobsmacked. Can't she get a credit card like everyone else?
She can't afford it because her savings are needed to pay her tax bill? (I agree with Gobsmacked. I'm below average income but because I worked hard for years etc. etc. have credit cards with decent limits. Though I worked hard for years etc. I don't go on about benefits scrounging scum, that is just unsavoury. -- and what about dental hospitals?)
John, are you proposing free NHS dental treatment for all? I'd back that...
Hi Jayann
I have always been amazed as to how successive governments have been able to remove dentistry from the National Health Service. No, I don't think that there should be a "free at the point of entry" dental service just as I no longer believe there should be a "free at the point of entry medical service". Having said that, people on very low incomes simply cannot access basic dental services in this country (and I include root canals within basic services - teeth were not designed to last for 50 years!). I mention Trixy's plight as an example. I am not generalising on it at all not am I privy to her finances. It's a sad state of affairs though. And of course if you do contribute to her dental care, you have to ask yourself if you will do the same for the thousands of others in her state who are, perhaps, not able to access the blogosphere in this sort of way. Maybe our Labour government should look at establishing a national fund to provide means tested support for those who genuinely can't afford the treatment they need. We could call it national insurance.
John
I'm sorry, but 'Trixy' can get fucked. I'm "benefit scrounging scum" because my brain happened to fuck up. I get £84.50 a week Incapacity Benefit (Currently docked to 70pw for having the temerity to be admitted to hospital). I am not entitled to free or reduced dental work, I have to pay for my own prescriptions, and also not entitled to free eyecare.
I don't have a 10k minimum income guarantee, free public transport, reduced fuel, and £300 fuel allowance either, like 'poor pensioners'.
No, for daring to become to ill to work I've been deemed worthless scum by both the Govt and the likes of our friend Trixy, and pretty much been told "Fuck off, come back to us when you're 65 and we'll help then" Great, only 35 years to go, if I haven't died of starvation or the effects of not being able to afford heating and hot water. my rent+council tax comes to £325 a month, £10 for my prescription prepayment. That leaves about £4 for food for the month. This month I don't even have that, because my benefits have been docked. I've considered suicide but a) can't afford any extra meds and am incapable of physical things like stringing up a noose and b) If I fail I'll end up in hospital and my IB will be docked again.
Cheeky cow. Savings? Tax bill? Poor baby. Maybe if she'd kept up with her PAYE contributions the dozy bitch wouldn't be in this predicament.
Dental hospitals offer free or greatly reduced treatment, as do out of hours DE clinics. She'll have to lower herself to the level of the 'scum' like me, and ask them for help.
Simple answer - phone her PCT, they're obliged to find her an NHS dentist.
I find it rather curious that she can send her children to private school but can't afford dentistry.
Perhaps she needs help in managing her finances.
I can't afford everything I want - (and I am sure few people can) so why should we support her?
Classy babe eh?
Begging in public much like the benefit scrounging scum, she so clearly despises.
PS Crippen, just waiting for another one of those "Cure Cancer Gently" ads to crop up on your blog and it's a stiff letter to the GMC.
I can see why you've got a soft spot for her.
I'm with Sad Scumbag on this one. I would have thought that even the most myopic halfwit like Trixy would understand that living like a king on the dole ended a long time ago. Perhaps if she actually met someone living on benefits...
When it comes to discretionary spending, you would also assume that anyone with a brain would put teeth above shoes. After hearing what happened to my colleague's heart during root canal treatment I know I do.
"After hearing what happened to my colleague's heart during root canal treatment I know I do."
huh?
Dr. Crippen. I had a gold crown placed about 1999. Total cost USA $750 at the time. It will last longer than me. I had another one placed in the early 1990's for somewhat less.
I get cleanings for a hundred dollars or so, every couple years, less often than I should. Some receding gums with age, and the sensitive teeth that go with that. Was offered a root canal. I learned to use the sensitive toothpaste with the potassium nitrate, and there are water/based fluoride rinses. It keeps symptoms well under control. No root canal for me. I am considering the prescription-strength high-fluoride rinse.
This is a few hundred dollars USA.
The economy is slowing in the USA. I bet you noticed some bumpy times in your country as well. As people cut back, the dentists are finding empty chairs and lowering prices to get them filled.
I would not consider dental insurance. In my area, that would limit you to the dentists who accept that insurance. Often the lesser-quality dentists. I pay cash. The impoverished go to community dental clinics. Usually staffed by dentists straight out of training, looking to get some experience and save money for their own practice.
This is not a lot of money. My family is immigrant, grandparents did not speak English. Factory jobs. Ran a grocery store. Police, fire, garbage collector. Didn't mean we couldn't take care of our teeth.
I mean, we get these types as well. Clearly they want to spend on things other than their teeth. I'm not sympathetic. But personally I don't see any need for dental "insurance". That's the sort of thing you save for. Provide free dental service for the indigent, fine. Most anyone middle-class should be able to pay for dental care.
........arf
I hear what you're saying, anonymous.
I don't have the best teeth but a couple hundred bucks a year keeps things in check. I can understand the truly poor not being able to do that but most others - why not? It's an attitude thing. Plenty of working class/lowish middle class types seem to be spending 10,000 plus on televisions every couple of years. I spent 200 bucks on one ten years ago. The change will probably pay for dentists for ever.
I've argued for years that there is something basically wrong with an NHS that will do all it can to mend your broken leg - for free - but charges you to mend problems in your mouth or eyes.
But then I've also argued for years that we should abolish the NHS and start again, considering what model of health care/teaching/research+funding is appropriate for 21st century medicine.
Although some sympathy with her situation, she can afford private medical insurance and to send children to private school - there are a lot of folk who would be more entitled to support from the state for their dentistry in my view.
John, yes, it is interesting that dentistry's been largely removed from the NHS.
on very low incomes simply cannot access basic dental services in this country
some can't -- too many can't -- indeed. The real unfairness between groups lies in the difference between these people and the people entitled to free dentistry (assuming they can access it at all easily!), not between people who are relatively affluent, and them.
And of course if you do contribute to her dental care, you have to ask yourself if you will do the same for the thousands of others in her state
I won't be donating... but if the issue were, rather, whether all non-cosmetic dental care should be a) NHS and b) inexpensive, I would not object to subsidising people like her (or Nat Rothschild, should he use the NHS); I didn't object to some really rather rich people being treated as NHS patients alongside my mother. Equally, I didn't object to being opposite a working class heroin addict last time I was in A & E (she'd been in prison, they'd given her methadone; when she came out, she overdosed on heroin). Indeed, I am glad she was there (we had a good talk) also glad the nurses were so very good with her. (I think we can assume she was on benefits.)
I mention Trixy's plight as an example. I am not generalising on it at all not am I privy to her finances. It's a sad state of affairs though.
It's also slightly puzzling, but I assumed she had looked after her teeth but has been felled by mischance (as I was after a dentist messed up some root canal treatment) (ouch).
Sad Scumbag, quite.
Maybe our Labour government should look at establishing a national fund to provide means tested support for those who genuinely can't afford the treatment they need. We could call it national insurance.
Oh very sarky :)
I cannot seem to leave a comment on her website, but she should look into the possiblility of suing her dentist for letting her get into that state in the first place. She may be covered by her household insurance. I sued my dentist and got £16.5K which now pays for all my private dental bills.
fuck her.it's not that she lacks money, she is just, by the looks of it, living outside her means. Or thought she'd get away with not paying enough taxes. Either way, fuck her and her begging.
I fixed my teeth ( 14 of them ruined by the water in my third world country) on my 14,000 pounds a year income and didn't complain nor beg. Took a year but I did it.
Also: the free NHS clinics that people on benefits can use do not do root canals, not even fillings. They might do an extraction if you're too bad, but that's it.
Only morons think people live well on benefits. After I lost my job ( in the NHS mind you, I know where Dr C is coming from on a lot of stuff)for not being compliant enough to accept to do double a workload because I was the only non british person in my department, it took me 7 months to get a new job. Then my partner lost his job as well, and here we are, two adults living on 620 pounds a month, which also had to cover electricity, rent and all else. 620 income, 300 rent, 80 electricity, phone, internet... it left less than 15 pounds a week for food. For two adults. Who also had to look for work, walk to interviews, etc. My partner suffered from bruxism for months. The NHS dentist wouldnt help and there were no other dentists available. He lived on painkillers for months. Sometimes when there were none he cried himself to sleep in unbelievable pain.
Fuck her.
So tell us dr C why the fuck would anyone want to help someone who has money but is too fucking stupid to know how to manage them?
I work in an office that involves talking to dentists; the ones who trained in the UK tend to just address themselves as 'Mr' (if they're male of course) but some of the others (whose countries shall remain un-named) insist on 'Dr'.
Have to resist the temptation to say the words "You know that's illegal.'
Some people do 'live well' on benefits, however, it's not living well by the standards of normal people. In terms of income they might be suprisingly well ranked, but let us just say they have expensive habits. Virtually none of these people are in soopermouse or Sad Scumbag's situation (or mine, JSA by the way).
Plenty of them do a bit of 'work' on the side if you know what I mean.
Anon - I know the type you mean, and they make it even harder for genuine claimants to be taken seriously. Because of my postcode area (and high levels of benefit fraud in it) my claim was denied three times. Then my local office had my housemate followed to work every day for a month, claimed it was me, and refused again despite us looking nothing alike. I can't even drive!
They'd rather refuse new claims to those in need than actually do the legwork of weeding out cheats and punishing them.
A couple in my village have three kids aged between 1 and 7. She claims all of the lone parent-related benefits while he lives with her. He is claiming incapacity (the usual, a 'bad back' and 'panic attacks'), has a flat which he receives HB and CTB for, which he sublets to his cousin for £300 a month. He works as a painter. Recently he was offered legit work by his boss and turned it down because he was 'only' offered £700 a week. He thinks £600 a week+benefits is much better. His three pedigree dogs need feeding!
Anyway, this couple are reported to the cheats hotline at least three times a year. People hate the way they flaunt their lifestyle. What do the benefits agencies do? Send them letters. "Dear H. We believe you are working while on benefits and living with a partner, 'K'. On [date two weeks in the future] we will visit you at home to make sure this is not the case". She gets one. "Dear K. We have been informed tat despite claiming single parent benefits you are living with a partner. One of our officers will visit your house on [date two weeks in the future] to investigate.
Good job! She puts his stuff in the loft, he stays at his own flat for the night before the interview, job done, all back to 'normal' the next day.
I don't like dentists, not does my other half. I pay through denplan which gives me some benefits in that it means my basic treatment is covered (and I can use a dentist I have grown to trust) however SOH is terrified of going not just because of his fears but also the costs as there is no means of cushioning the costs involved ie spreading it out over the years unless he also signs up to a dentist which he won't consider at the moment.
I would love the government to bring back free teeth and eye care for everyone to take away some of the concerns.
"A couple in my village have three kids aged between 1 and 7. She claims all of the lone parent-related benefits while he lives with her. He is claiming incapacity (the usual, a 'bad back' and 'panic attacks'), has a flat which he receives HB and CTB for, which he sublets to his cousin for £300 a month. He works as a painter. Recently he was offered legit work by his boss and turned it down because he was 'only' offered £700 a week. He thinks £600 a week+benefits is much better. His three pedigree dogs need feeding!"
Just be glad he isn't working as a burgler and they aren't three bull terriers!
My dentist's name has Dr in front of it, and I eventually asked him why. Turns out its the same reason he only has appointments one day a week. He's really a surgeon, the day as a dentist is just to keep his hand in so to speak (he does surgery on people's jaws, so it's basically the same anatomy from a different angle).
But to read a newspaper or watch the TV news you'd think my dentist didn't exist. Everyone has to go private, I'm assured, because there just aren't any NHS dentists. And anyway the same paper will assure me the NHS fees are outrageous (and forget to mention that they're means tested, I never paid a penny for the summer I had cancer and was too sick to find a new job). No, better to buy some more lottery scratchcards and dream of being a millionaire than go ask someone for help.
The triage rule applies to our shoe-lovin blogger here. If they're screaming, they're obviously not that bad, the first people to get a look are the ones who aren't fit enough to scream.
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