England has a cavity. And that cavity’s name is Rishi Sunak.
And much like a dental abscess, the British Prime Minister gets worse and worse the longer he’s around. Just a few months ago he made headlines for breaking international law with his abysmal “Stop The Boats” immigration policy. And not only did he refuse to pay reparations for the descendants of those affected by Britain’s historic role in the slave trade, but he also refused to even apologize for it. To borrow a few British-isms, the guy’s a wanker. A tosser. A real bell end.
Now Britain has a new crisis: self-administered dentistry. And Sunak is doing nothing about it.
The root (canal) of the problem stems from the conditions at England’s National Health Service (NHS), whose overworked and underfunded doctors and nurses have gone on strike in order to protest their lack of government support. Despite health union leaders staging their longest walk-out yet, Sunak refuses to offer a pay raise any higher than a paltry 6 percent. Critics at the British Medical Association claim that Sunak’s decision is actively “driving doctors away” and has missed a critical opportunity to end the strikes.
These walk-outs go hand in hand with several public sector strikes from workers in public transportation and law enforcement, the intensity of which has not been seen in decades. Workers across multiple industries are demanding pay raises in order to combat the cost of living crisis that is currently gripping the nation. The healthcare worker strikes reached a new apex after a five-day junior doctors walk-out took place.
Britons in need of medical attention are getting the worst of it.
According to a YouGov poll conducted with over 2,000 individuals, it was discovered that over 10% of respondents had engaged in “DIY dentistry,” with over half of those individuals admitting to doing so within the past year. What does “DIY dentistry” mean? It means that people are so desperate to treat dental problems that they have begun ripping out their own teeth with pliers. Many of these people are unable to afford access to NHS services, while others are forced to make five-hour trips in order to receive proper medical care. The people who are disproportionately impacted by the lack of available dental care are the poor, ethnic minorities, the homeless, refugees, and those with complex needs such as autism.
“To hear of someone in such pain and distress that they resorted to using pliers to extract their teeth demonstrates the crisis in NHS dental services,” says Steve Brine, chairman of the Health and Social Care Committee. In an interview with Sky News, Brine continued, “The problem is compounded by people being unaware of what they’re entitled to and a contract that is unfit for purpose when it comes to paying dentists for treating NHS patients.”
The Committee is now demanding that the British government guarantee that NHS patients will be able to receive dental care a “reasonable distance” away from their home in a “reasonable timeframe”. Brine added that many of these recommendations “were made by our predecessor committee 15 years ago to reform the dental contract have still not been implemented”.
But with disgruntled physicians departing from the NHS in droves due to Sunak’s policies, it’s unlikely that these reforms will take place any time soon. “Failure to act will condemn this service to oblivion,” says Shawn Charlwood, chairman of the British Dental Association’s General Dental Practice Committee, who claims that the Health and Social Care Committee’s report is “an instruction manual to save NHS dentistry”.
The NHS is optimistic that these reforms will be implemented. “While the number of dental appointments available for NHS patients is steadily increasing and the GP Patient Survey found seven out of 10 patients had a good overall experience of dental services,” said an NHS spokesperson. “The NHS has already started to address some of these recommendations through initial contract changes last year. These significant reforms will continue to further support dental teams to carry out even more treatments and address the inevitable backlogs that built up during the pandemic, while record numbers of dentists, dental therapists, and hygienists will be trained as part of the NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan.”
But if Rishi Sunak’s policies continue to drive out doctors, there won’t be anyone left at the NHS to implement it.
(via Sky News, featured image: Daniel Leal – WPA Pool/Getty Images)
