American Flag Blog

Could it be that the result of nationalized health care is that you can’t get any?

I think she was going about it all wrong anyway - she should have started with a government psychiatrist.

By TREVOR KAVANAGH
Sun Political Editor

TONY Blair yesterday faced a woman who pulled out SEVEN of her teeth after failing to find an NHS dentist.

Great-grandmother Valerie Halsworth, 64, removed them with her husband’s pliers.

She pulled out a seventh tooth over the weekend before meeting the PM in Coventry yesterday.

The cleaner, from Scarborough, North Yorks, has a gum disease that causes her teeth to loosen.

Mr Blair told her: “I can’t suddenly just produce more dentists. We have to train them. I can’t force them from the private sector into the NHS.”

Valerie said: “Mr Blair didn’t seem as though he had an answer.

“The ten teeth I have got left are OK. But in another month or two I’m going to need a dentist.

“It would be nice for somebody to take them out properly for me.”

She added: “The only way to get rid of the pain from my teeth was to pull out the infected ones.

“I had a few pints of lager then screwed up my face, put the pliers against the tooth and yanked. It’s lucky I like milk pudding and mashed potato.

“My husband can’t stand to watch. But he’s lucky — he had all his teeth pulled out 30 years ago and got a set of false teeth for about a fiver.”

The confrontation came on a live question and answer session with the PM on Sky TV.

Mrs Halsworth — who cannot afford private dentistry — said three foreign dentists in her home town all proved unsatisfactory.

Last March 3,000 people queued for a new NHS dentist in the town.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 31st, 2005 at 2:02 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.