Diary – 16 April 2015

To the dentist. And for an extraction. I hadn’t had a tooth out in decades. But the twinges when I bit on a nut warned me that my problem molar — much abused by a badly fitted bridge in the 1970s — had finally given way. My usual dentist confirmed as much with a poke and an X-ray. Then came the surprise. ‘I’m going to hand you over now,’ he said. Having a tooth out has ceased to be a hazard of life to be borne and grinned at. Instead it’s become dental surgery. And it requires a specialist. Mine was a man with a mission. ‘My job is to make sure you feel no pain,’ he said. And he proceeded, with skill, charm and patience, to do just that. The result was that the extraction, rather than the grinding wrench I remembered, was almost an anticlimax. But it wasn’t only the medicine that struck; it was also the efficiency and customer care: my notes (back to the faulty bridge of 1973) were to hand; I was given clear instructions about post-operative care; my specialist even rang me at the end of the working day to check there had been no complications. I was almost profuse in my gratitude.

As I put the phone down, I reflected on the gap — almost unbridgeable — between what I’d experienced and the school dentist (a kindly old soul, despite his terrifying equipment) of my childhood. Dentistry was, of course, like all other forms of medical care, part of the original NHS. But it escaped relatively quickly. Would the extraordinary progress I’d just experienced have been possible if it hadn’t? At any rate, it proves that the privatisation of an important part of healthcare isn’t the end of the world as we know it.