When I was a child, all my elderly relatives had false teeth. My parents’ generation did not. Why? Because of the NHS.
My grandparents were born before World War One and grew into adulthood before there was an NHS. In poor working-class families, they had no dental care and had terrible teeth. I remember stories from my grandad about pulling out his own teeth. Then in 1948, the NHS was founded and they all got false teeth. It’s one of my strongest childhood memories, visiting my Nan and seeing her beaming at me with gleaming teeth every time she got a new set.
My parents’ generation were also born before the NHS but grew up into it, and during their teenage years and most of their adult lives they had access to dental care. And while that didn’t eradicate problems completely – mass production of sugar-based and processed food also grew in that time – they never needed false teeth.
Now, neither myself nor my grown-up children are registered with NHS dentists. What will that mean for the future? Are we going back to the generation before my grandparents, whose rotten teeth remained with them all their lives?
What has happened to dentistry is, to my mind, one of the starkest examples of the difference a public service can make, as opposed to privatisation.
Paula Mitchell
