Dentists’ fees

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32425, 12 October 1970, Page 12

Dentists’ fees

Sir, —"Sucker” has my full support. I have been going to dentists for 60 odd years —for routine inspections, an occasional filling, and, very rarely, an extraction. Recently I visited my current dentist because a back tooth, with a receding gum, had become sensitive to hot and

cold temperatures. He recommended that it should come out, and I agreed, expecting that he would do the job forthwith. Instead I was referred to a “dental surgeon” who first X-rayed the tooth, and subsequently removed it —his work involving an elaborate technique hitherto unknown to me. I don’t challenge the value of these practitioners in cases of multiple or complicated extractions, but in the present instance an elementary dental job (which was done by horsedoctors 400 years ago) cost me 10 dollars and 50 cents—two dollars going to my dentist for five words of advice and eight dollars and 50 cents to his colleague.— Yours, etc., BITER. October 10, 1970.