Borders Health Trust

I may have already commented on it here but my admiration of the local NHS Trust knows no bounds. There is a vast body of detail on the Internet as to how useless some trusts are. How arrogant. As an ex-customer of the Medway trust in Kent, I count myself as a expert on rubbish performance.

About a month ago, I broke a tooth in the lower set. In half horizontally. I did nothing about it but after ten days I had an abscess form under it. Painful enough to need treatment. It was a week-end and I needed the 24 hour referral service. Within some 15 minutes they had arranged for me to see the dental A&E section at Borders General Hospital. I was given anti-biotics and that was the end of the abscess. They told me they would arrange extraction within some ten days. I got the appointment card for or five days later.

I am a total dentist coward. Until this incident I had not been near a dentist since 1961. I do not have a problem with the pain - one has an injection after all. It is the pressure on my gum and the twisting and turning I cannot stand. I wrote and told the hospital of my problem and was invited to a pain evaluation discussion. I went there last Tuesday and the dentist explained the new extraction under sedation procedure and the modern general anesthetic. All my questions were answered patiently and fully without any discernible prevarication. I was left to think things over and decide which method I wanted. Let them know when I felt ready to go ahead.

In the thinking, I applied my old basic first question - why do anything? That answered it really. I telephoned them this morning. With some dread; they had invested a lot of time and care on me. There was absolutely no problem when I told them I had decided to do nothing. They even thanked me for letting them know so promptly and said I knew where they were if I changed my mind.

So - another first class result. I've already checked-out the medical side at BGH. All that is left is the psychiatric speciality!