A LISNASKEA dentist has said she had never thought she would see the day that new NHS patients would have to be turned away.
Rachele Crozier who owns the Delicate Dental practice was speaking following a recent investigation by the BBC found that nine out of 10 practices were no longer registering new NHS patients.
Ms Crozier, who is also a member of the Northern Ireland Dental ?Practice Committee, has said that while her own practice has a mixture of private and NHS patients, no more of the latter will be able to register there and warned that NHS children may have to be registered as private patients in the future.
She said: “I never thought I would see the day that we would say that we would not be registering any more new NHS adult patients. This is because we have to protect the long-term viability of the practice.
“If we cannot pay our bills, pay our staff and be able to pay ourselves, then, like any other business, if you’re running at a loss you cannot sustain that forever. You would have to increase your fees to cover your costs and do something to make yourself viable.
“A lot of dentists have been going, ‘hold on a minute – I am responsible for my staff, I employ a lot of people and I need to make sure that they have a job’.
“While we are still seeing NHS children, there will come a point where down the line we have to say no more NHS children patients.”
A number of factors such as the massive post-Covid backlog of patients and rising costs of electricity bills and new materials have forced Ms Crozier and other dentists to make the call to stop taking in NHS patients.
“Covid did create a backlog of patient appointments due to patients not being able to access dental care during lockdown,” she added.
“Because patients haven’t had a check-up in two years, this is taking a lot more time and we have a lot of treatment needs to fulfil.
“Pre-Covid, for every 10 check-ups that we did, only one or two people needed treatment.
“Now, that number of people needing treatment would be five or six with some needing more than one appointment to get that treatment done. So the capacity for us to take on new patients is diminished because you’re trying to keep your registered patients and get them healthy and stable.
“We had to make a business decision on what was going to make the practice financially viable in the long-term that will survive and be here to provide treatment for patients.
“Covid has been the straw that has broken the camel’s back and has tipped things to a point where it’s been exposed and laid bare how the reality actually is.
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