- The Guardian Monday 2 May 2022
(^4) National
‘I haven’t seen a dentist in six years – my teeth still hurt’
Maooz Awan, 29, PhD graduate,
St Leonards-on-Sea , East Sussex
At the start of the pandemic, I
moved back to Hastings, where I
grew up. My bottom teeth were
hurting, so I went to the dentist
and they said that because I hadn’t
had an appointment in three years
they’d taken me off their list. They
didn’t have space for new NHS
patients. I looked up every NHS
surgery in Hastings, none of which
were taking patients, and then up
as far as Eastbourne, 20 miles away.
There was nothing, so I gave up. I
don’t have the money to go private.
I haven’t been to the dentist for
six years now and my bottom teeth
still hurt. It’s not debilitating, but
I assume it’s something I should get
looked at. It’s very frustrating.
Linda, 68, retired, Surrey
I called my NHS dentist to ask for
an emergency appointment for a
broken tooth in January but the
receptionist told me they would
have to call me back because I
hadn’t been for two years – which
was because of the pandemic.
Within a couple of days , my whole
face was swollen and I could barely
speak , eat and drink. I had to get
an emergency appointment with
a private dentist who prescribed
me antibiotics. They couldn’t look
at the tooth because the area had
become so swollen that I couldn’t
open my mouth. What really
frightened me was that the dentist
said if the swelling got worse and I
couldn’t breathe, I should ring 999.
When I heard back from my NHS
dentist , they arranged for me to
have the tooth taken out. Without
the delay, I might have avoided
the infection.
Germany in
shock – but
sympathy for
Becker is in
short supply
Kate Connolly
Berlin
The jailing in Britain of the tennis
legend Boris Becker for bankruptcy
off ences has triggered an outpouring
of shock and disappointment in his
native Germany, where he was once
a national hero.
One former fan spoke for many,
when he said: “He made mistakes for
which he’s rightly being punished.
But maybe he’ll get up again one day,
just like Becker, the tennis player, so
often did.”
The writer Till Jecke , a sports
reporter with the tabloid Bild, off ered
one of many recollections in Sunday’s
newspapers of the day in July 1985
when the 17-year-old , nicknamed
“boom boom Becker” at home for
the way he pounded the court, “cat-
apulted the somewhat stuff y ‘white
sport’ into sheer galactic heights” by
winning Wimbledon, the youngest
person ever to do so, capturing hearts
in Germany and across the world.
His “Becker fi st” and the “Becker
pike ” when he’d hurl himself hori-
zontally across court in an eff ort to
watched as Becker, wearing a tie in
Wimbledon colours of purple and
green, was “whisked from the dock
and into the security wing – no last
embrace, no chance to be comforted”.
There is little sympathy in Ger-
many for Becker, who is seen to have
brought his problems on himself. “He
could have averted this tragedy,” Der
Spiegel said, “but he was not pre-
pared to show any real remorse, or
humility towards his creditors .”
Yet commiserations over the
sportsman’s fall from grace were in
plentiful supply. “For the human
being Boris, I’m sorry,” said the
former football manager Reiner
Calmund.
Günther Bosch , who trained him
to Wimbledon victory, said he hoped
his former protegé would “use the
strength with which he survived the
hardest of matches, in order to master
what he now faces ”. But the 85-year-
old said he “could not bear the idea”
of visiting him in prison.
The German tennis federation,
DTB , has said it will “stand by” the
three-times Wimbledon champion.
“We respect and regret the judg ment
Boris Becker and his girlfriend,
Lilian de Carvalho Monteiro , arrive
at Southwark crown court
PHOTOGRAPH: ANDY RAIN/EPA
and wish him all the best for the com-
ing time,” Dietloff von Arnim , its
president, said. “We will stand by
his side”.
His estranged wife, Lilly Becker ,
told the German channel RTL she
was surprised by what she called
the severity of the judg ment (he had
received a suspended sentence in
Germany in 2002 for tax evasion).
“After all, he didn’t kill anybody,”
she said. She added that it was impor-
tant for the world to know that she,
their son, Amadeus, Noah and Elias
and Barbara , the children and their
mother from his fi rst marriage, as
well as his current girlfriend Lilian
de Carvalho Monteiro , “all stand
behind Boris”.
His mother, 86-year-old Elvira
Pisch , said she was upset and sur-
prised. “After all,” she said, “he is a
decent boy.”
Anna Ermakova , his daughter from
a brief but infamous sexual encoun-
ter with her waitress mother, Angela,
in the cupboard of a London restau-
rant in 1999, said she was in a “state
of shock”. She had written to the
judge on behalf of her 12-year-old
half-brother Amadeus, who she said
would now be “without a father fi g-
ure ... during a diffi cult phase of his
growing up.”
Oscar Otte, beaten semi-fi nalist in
the ATP tournament in Munich on
Saturday , said he was saddened by
Becker’s conviction “because he is
the tennis legend in Germany and
he made ‘tennis Germany’ what it is
today thanks to his achievements.”
▲ Maooz Awan: ‘It’s frustrating’
get every ball, were all part of the
unforgettable magic mix of his play,
Jecke recalled.
It was such a contrast with the
scene in Southwark crown court on
Friday, when the 54-year-old was
sentenced to two and a half years for
hiding millions of pounds’ worth of
assets after being made bankrupt in
June 2017, and taken to Wandsworth
prison, two and a half miles from Cen-
tre Court at Wimbledon.
“What now awaits him is brutal,”
wrote Stefanie Bolzen , London cor-
respondent of Die Welt. She had
Warning of ‘dental deserts’ across England
after thousands stop working for NHS
Continued from page 1
the UK’s 42,000 dentists. It blamed
patients’ inability to get NHS care in
England on ministers only providing
enough money in the dental contract
to cover the cost of treating just over
half the population.
Governments since 2010 have
pledged to reform the dental contract
but not done so, although talks are
ongoing. NHS England spends about
£3bn a year on dental care, though
that sum has remained fl at for some
time. Dentists dislike what they call
a “broken” contract that involves tar-
gets for the amount of care given and,
they claim, can pay them the same
amount for doing one fi lling as for 10,
and dis courages them from treating
complex cases because they do not
get paid for the time involved.
“Dentists are simply not seeing
a future in the NHS, with a broken
contract pushing out talent every
day it remains in force,” said Shawn
Charlwood , chair of the BDA’s gen-
eral dental practice committee. “We
need to halt an exodus that’s already
in motion. Millions are going without
the care they need and quick fi xes are
no substitute for real reform and fair
funding.”
The ADG’s report says that “we are
now seeing ‘dental deserts’ emerge
across the country where there is
almost no chance of ever seeing an
NHS dentist for routine care". It adds:
“Dental deserts present a serious risk
to the dental health of millions of NHS
patients in England.”
The trend is likely to worsen as
dental practices increasingly rely on
private work to stay open, it warns.
The “deserts” are particularly con-
centrated in rural and coastal areas.
It names the area covered by the
NHS clinical commissioning group
in North Lincolnshire as the area of
England with the lowest number of
NHS dentists per 100,000 people –
just 32. North East Lincolnshire and
the East Riding of Yorkshire are joint
second , with 37 , while Lincolnshire
and Norfolk and Waveney on 38.
The report also reveals just 26.1% of
adults in Thurrock in Essex had seen
an NHS dentist in the previous two
years – the lowest rate in the country
- followed by West Essex (27.3%) and
Kent and Medway (29.3%). Thurrock
is also where the lowest proportion of
children have seen an NHS dentist in
the last year – just 30.7% – followed
by North East London (32.2%) and
North Lincolnshire (35.3%).
“Dental deserts not only stretch
across the whole of the east of Eng-
land from East Yorkshire, through
Lincolnshire and down to Norfolk
but are now emerging in many other
‘red wall’ constituencies that the gov-
ernment wishes to level up,” said the
ADG’s chair, Neil Carmichael , a for-
mer Conservative MP.
The ADG warns that the decline in
access to check-ups raises the pros-
pect of a health crisis in which cases
of mouth cancer and type 2 diabetes
get missed rather than being picked
up by a dentists. It wants ministers to
tackle the shortage by increasing the
number of training places for dentists
and extending beyond the end of this
year recognition of the qualifi cations
of EU-trained dentists.
Urging reform of the dental
contract Rachel Power, the chief
executive of the Patients Association,
said: “Our helpline regularly takes
calls from patients who can not fi nd
an NHS dentist. We know patients
joining three-year waiting lists, just
to get on the books of an NHS den-
tist. This is an unacceptable situation.
“Dental deserts can not be allowed
to develop. Dentists are often the
health professional who spot seri-
ous health problems early.”
A Department of Health and Social
Care spokesperson said: “We’ve given
the NHS £50m to fund up to 350,
extra dental appointments and we
are growing the workforce so people
can get the oral care they need – in
December 2021, there were 264 more
[NHS and private] dentists registered
than the previous year.”