Ms Ellen Bonham, a 43-year-old teaching assistant has been awarded £26,000 from a former dentist with the help of specialist dental negligence solicitors the Dental Law Partnership after dental implants were installed so badly it has taken more than four years to repair the damage and left her unable to eat properly.
Ms Bonham – who now lives in County Laois, Ireland, but had the treatment done while she was living in South Woodford, East London – first visited Dr Maria Socorro Cobo Yera at Finest Dental, Canon Street, London, in April 2019. She had worn partial dentures since the age of 16 and was getting fed up with them falling out. Whilst under the care of Dr Yera, Ms Bonham was advised that she needed to wait for her gums to heal, and then she could have implants installed. Ms Bonham explained “I wanted to have treatment done that would last the rest of my life.”
In 2019, Ms Bonham had the implants for her upper jaw installed under local anaesthetic. “My face was so swollen the next day and I thought my eyes would pop out their sockets from the pain and pressure. I contacted the practice and was told it would clear up quickly, but I experienced pain for three weeks, which made me wonder if something had gone wrong,” Ms Bonham recalled. “When it came to having the bottom jaw set done, I was so nervous about the pain I had to opt for sedation.”
“I was told in an early consultation that the process would be completed and my mouth would be sorted by August that year,” Ms Bonham explained. “However, I was still going through the process of having implant-related appointments in October. When I arrived for an appointment in October, I was told that Dr Yera had left the practice. I was due to attend the practice for my final appointments the following February but arrived to find the company had gone bust.”
At this point, Ms Bonham visited an alternative practice, where she was shocked to be told that there were a considerable number of issues with the placement of the implants she had received under Dr Yera’s care. “I was horrified when I had the CT scan that showed the extent of how badly the implants had been installed. Just over a year after being installed, some of the implants were failing and I was advised I may require bone grafting or the implants would need to be removed and restored, which would be challenging due to how close to my nerves they’ve been placed,” Ms Bonham explained.
Frustrated with the experiences she had gone through, Ms Bonham contacted the Dental Law Partnership in 2020. Further analysis revealed that all of Ms Bonham’s issues could have been avoided if she had been provided with clinically satisfactory implants from the outset, and that she is likely to lose at least four of the implants in the future.
“The corrective work is still ongoing today, and I’ve had ongoing issues with infections which have caused a lot of pain,” Ms Bonham explained. “Two of the remaining implants are hanging on by a thread at the moment, which means I’ve only been able to eat really soft food, and my diet has been affected consistently for the last four years.”
Heather Owen of the Dental Law Partnership commented: “The distress and pain our client has experienced was completely unnecessary. If the dentist involved had provided more satisfactory treatment, her problems could have been avoided.”
The Dental Law Partnership took on Ms Bonham’s case in 2020. The case was successfully settled in April 2023 when Ms Bonham was paid £26,000 in an out of court settlement. The dentist involved did not admit liability. Any patients who believe they may have received negligent dental care should visit The Dental Law Partnership