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The Grouch - October 06

DO YOU VIEW your dentist in the same way you view your garage man or your plumber or television repair man? You know, you go along to have something looked at and fixed and come out with a whopping big bill, much bigger than you bargained for and with little tangible to show for it?

It was just an idle thought brought to mind by my recent encounter with my garden machinery repair man. The grass cutting machine decided to stop just as the grass badly needed cutting.  DIY skills and a quick investigation failed to find the problem. There was no other recourse but take it to an “expert“. When things breakdown just when they are most needed we blame “Sod’s Law” and I am sure you have some experience of that. As it was, the problem was a minor one and the job was quickly done. But, the account which followed, proved to be more than half the value of the wretched machine.

Then there was the time I decided to have the timing belt on the family car replaced. You know the story. Change it every three years or else!! Or else you face the likelihood of a catastrophic break in the belt causing total demolition of the entire engine. So we change the belt as advised, at a cost of £48, plus man’s time. But the account also charged for three “rollers” at a cost of £90, plus the man‘s time. I could see that a new belt had been fitted but I had no way of knowing if the rollers had been changed or if indeed they actually needed replacing in the first place. Perhaps I should have asked to see the old rollers, but it would have seemed rude to mistrust the garage. It is all about trust, isn’t it?

My cynicism came from a bad experience some years ago in a big city. In for MOT, I was told my car needed a set of new bushes and front steering rods and the cost would be nearly £300. Warning bells rang in my head and so I took the car to two other garages, both of which said no work was required to pass the test. I didn’t have the nerve to accost the first garage, I simply stopped giving them my custom, for ever. And, I spread the news around friends and relatives.  My trust was badly dented and I grew into a grumpy old man. Today, we have the option of reporting such matters to the Trading Standards Office.

As for the dentist, it seems that every time I dutifully visit at 6 monthly intervals I am alerted to impending calamity. Not just a filling replacement or plaque removal but a whole root cavity needing howking out and then replaced with £400 worth of gleaming white ceramic capping. With the price of gold now around £500 per ounce and the average tooth cap weighing in at around a tenth of an ounce, I might as well just have all my stumps refilled with gold. Would that be a bit ostentatious? Anyway, who needs fancy dentistry at the back of the mouth? No one sees the damned teeth except us, when we open our mouth to clean them, or to gasp with surprise when it comes to paying the dentist’s bill.

It’s not all doom and gloom in the tooth industry however.  Things have improved in Scottish mouths in the last 50 years. Did you know that in the middle of the last century, forty percent of all men in Glasgow who were over 40 years old, had no teeth!  So, it seems our dentists must be doing something right. But, it is still a pity we don’t have the choice to go with the cheap and cheerful NHS for a bit of modest maintenance.

British dentists complained some years ago that they were worth more money and they began to desert the NHS in droves. Now it seems the balance may have swung a bit far the other way, for they seem to be getting very well paid, but have to suffer from a bad press.  It’s difficult for the average citizen to know how much a good mechanic or engineer is worth per hour, or a good dentist for that matter. Are they good at what they do? Do we get value for money?  Did the rollers really need changing? It’s all about trust after all!

Alex Peake