MUM-TO-BE SUFFERS YEARS OF AGONY AND LOSES THREE TEETH DUE TO DENTAL BLUNDERS

A mum-to-be has been awarded £23,000 in an out of court settlement after suffering years of agony and the loss of three teeth because of dental negligence.

Suzanne Killip, aged 25, a personal assistant who is expecting her first baby in July, lost three of her back teeth which could have been saved and suffered years of agonising abscesses because she wasn’t treated correctly by Dr Ian Christopher Blackmur (now retired) and Dr Amanda Ransimali Mallikarachchi of the Bingley Dental Practice, Bingley, West Yorkshire.

The problems started in 2005 when Suzanne, of Garton Drive, Bradford, complained of severe toothache and x-rays showed decay in four of her back teeth. There then followed almost ten years of pain, abscesses, repeated visits to the dentist and time off work for Suzanne. During that time her dentists variously gave her antibiotics for the infection and filled her teeth but the underlying decay was not removed and so spread, resulting in the teeth rotting beyond the point they could be saved and the eventual extraction of three of her back teeth.

Suzanne said: “I went to the dentist because I was constantly getting abscesses in the side of my face. I was incredibly uncomfortable and I was always swilling my mouth out and taking paracetamol. I tried everything; ice on my face, swilling it with whisky, every old wives’ tale I could think of, but nothing helped. I went back and forth to the dentist and got various courses of antibiotics but every visit I would get another cyst and an infection. It was like a constantly revolving door.”

In fact Suzanne suffered so much she went through periods where her face was so swollen she couldn’t open her eye.

After suffering with one particularly nasty abscess for over a week Dr Blackmur removed one of Suzanne’s teeth as it was so badly decayed.

She said: “It was horrific. I used to ring NHS Direct because the pain was so unbearable but what made the whole thing worse was that the dentist didn’t ever want to use anaesthetic so I used to suffer the treatment with no pain relief.”

“It was really because I couldn’t face another painful session and I had already lost one tooth that I decided to go and visit another dentist and it was them who said the whole thing was a terrible mess.

Suzanne then had hundreds of pounds of treatment including the removal of two rotted teeth and multiple root canal treatments. She said: “Those teeth could and should have been saved but because my dentists didn’t remove the decay it was allowed to spread and has caused me to have them removed. I received bad treatment for seven years, I’ve got gaping holes in my mouth and I’ve been to hell and back.”

Jonathan Owen, solicitor at Dental Law Partnership explained: “Suzanne is a young woman who deserved to have the right treatment which should have saved the three teeth. She’s suffered years of pain as a result of the neglect and faces implant replacement therapy and will be visiting the dentist for corrective and restorative treatment for the foreseeable future. A woman of 25 should not have needed to have three of her teeth removed and it is severely negligent of the dentists to have allowed this to happen.”

Suzanne contacted the Dental Law Partnership who accepted her case in June 2015 and her case was concluded just five months later in November 2015 and settled out-of-court for £23,000. The defendants Dr Ian Christopher Blackmur (now retired) and Dr Amanda Ransimali Mallikarachchi, did not admit liability for their actions.