Ms Maggie White, a 42-year-old telecoms worker from Solihull, has been awarded £35,000 from her former dentist with the help of specialist dental negligence solicitors the Dental Law Partnership after more than a decade of dental errors led to the avoidable loss of 8 teeth, as well as months of agony and disruption to Ms White’s life.
Between 2000 and 2016, Ms White was a patient at Kings Health Dental Practice, Kings Heath Birmingham owned by Dr Dinesh Balkrishna since 2004. She attended the practice regularly for routine appointments, including for check-ups and fillings. Over the period, she also returned to the practice regularly for more invasive treatments, such as root canals, and due to issues with swelling and pain in her mouth – often as a result of fractured fillings.
“I have always taken care to look after my teeth,” Ms White explained. “I don’t drink fizzy drinks and have always been conscious to maintain a healthy lifestyle, which included dental care. However, it felt like the dental issues were never-ending. I trusted the dentists were doing the right thing as they were in the position of authority, so didn’t question how recurring issues were.”
During this period, Ms White regularly experienced infections that caused a considerable amount of pain and required antibiotics. “The pain was extremely disruptive to my life – I missed weekends with my children because I was stuck in bed; I had to take days off work; I couldn’t go to the gym. This cycle was ongoing for years – every few weeks a new pain would occur and I’d be back to the dentist. I’d be given root canal treatments and have more fillings and then be given antibiotics, but nothing seemed to help ease the pain. At one point, I had to attend hospital to have four teeth extracted,” Ms White recalled.
In 2017, Ms White moved to a new practice where it was revealed she had a cyst in her jaw that had never been diagnosed, which had been the route of much of the pain and issues she had experienced. “When I visited the new practice, they were horrified at the state of my mouth and referred me to a specialist, which is where I had the scan that revealed the cyst,” Ms White explained. Since then, Ms White has undergone six years of restorative work, including the extraction of a multiple teeth.
“My mouth is only just back to normal – I’m having the last few implants installed this summer, so it’s taken six years of intensive treatments to recover from the damage left by Kings Health Dental Practice,” Ms White explained. “I’ve had a sinus lift, as well as a second cyst also removed, and had to wait months for a bone graft to take hold before I could have implants installed after all the extractions.”
Frustrated with the experiences she had gone through, Ms White contacted the Dental Law Partnership in 2020. Further analysis revealed that the significant disruption to her life caused by all these dental treatments. She was given avoidable root canal treatments and crowns, developed a cyst, suffered with rhinosinusitis, and had to undergo the extraction of 8 teeth. She suffered pain, discomfort and sensitivity and experienced difficulty eating.
“The whole experience at my former practice was frustrating and exhausting. Looking back, it felt like they were constantly sticking a plaster over the issues rather than sorting out the cause,” Ms White recalled. “It’s taken years and cost a huge amount of money to have all the restorative treatment required, and I still have a number of gaps in my mouth.”
Tim Armitage of the Dental Law Partnership commented: “The distress and pain our client has experienced was completely unnecessary. If the dentists involved had provided more satisfactory treatment, her problems could have been avoided.”
The Dental Law Partnership took on Ms White’s case in 2020. The case was successfully settled in April 2023 when Ms White was paid £35,000 in an out of court settlement. Dr Dinesh Balkrishna, owner of Kings Health Dental Practice, denied liability. Any patients who believe they may have received negligent dental care should visit dentallaw.co.uk.