Dental Distraction For Tory Leadership Frontrunner
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- Published: Monday, 18 July 2022 20:51
- Written by Chris Tapper
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Portsmouth North MP Penny Mordaunt faces distracting dental woes as she participates in the last stages of the fight for the Conservative Party leadership vacancy. Last night, the second placed MP dropped one vote in the latest round of voting to find a replacement for Boris Johnson.
The Portsmouth News has headlined that the city has plunged “To new depths” as it reported that the sale of a city centre dental practice has stalled, “Leaving patients in limbo.”
A spokesperson for {my}dentist insisted the sale had not collapsed and that the dental corporate’s bosses were hopeful it would be completed ‘very soon,’ with patients being transferred to the new owners, the daily newspaper said.
The News said that the practice, based in North End, Portsea, was due to be purchased by Astradent Ltd, which was first incorporated as a private limited company in September 2020.
The spokesperson for {my}dentist told The News that “People in desperate need of ‘emergency treatment’ could arrange to go to its neighbouring practices elsewhere in the city.”
“But patients have today claimed such an arrangement is not in place and that when they have contacted other {my}dentist practices locally they have instead been told to go call NHS 111.”
“One 36-year-old police officer from Stamshaw, who is with {my}dentist’s site in North End, was outraged by the situation, saying he had been repeatedly ‘fobbed off’ by the company,” The News said.
“Speaking to The News, the furious officer said he had been left in ‘the worst pain of his life’ for days after a filling cracked.”
“When he approached {my}dentist on May 20, he found the practice was deserted. After days of waiting, he was finally able to get a temporary filling – which is now crumbling after more than a month.”
“This is the most pain I have ever been in,” the officer said. “I was in excruciating pain and urgently needed the dentist, but I was fobbed off, saying I was on their urgent list for when Astradent took over and told me to call 111,” The News reported.
Only a few weeks ago, Ms Mordaunt staged a dental summit in order to meet health officials. The News said that the Tory leadership hopeful had previously lobbied health minister Maria Caulfield to take urgent action.
After the summit, Ms Mordaunt told The News “Local commissioners should immediately stand up the things the dental summit identified as increasing the volume of dental appointments.”
“I have already spoken to the minister to make her aware so they can provide support to the local commissioning team. The dental school has also offered its facilities to bridge this gap,” the Minister of State for Trade said.
The News said that Labour MP for Portsmouth South, Stephen Morgan, blamed the government for the city’s dental crisis.
He told the newspaper ‘Portsmouth has become a dental desert following 12 years of chronic mismanagement and underfunding of our local NHS services. Our city simply cannot afford to lose yet another dental practice.”
“Ministers claim piecemeal government funding in our region will help, but local dentists have told me it doesn’t even begin to meet the scale of the challenge.”
“Instead of chasing their own political ambitions, these developments demonstrate local Conservative MPs should be focusing on issues here in Portsmouth.”
Image of Penny Mordaunt MP by GOV.UK under a CreativeCommons 3.0 license
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