Grandfather Took His Own Life After Traumatic Dental Journey
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- Published: Thursday, 19 October 2023 10:09
- Written by Guy Tuggle
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An 81 year old grandfather from Harlow took his own life after he had spent years grappling with what Senior Essex Coroner Lincoln Brooks said were the “long term consequences of unsuccessful dental surgery” which had “impacted significantly on his mental health and ability to cope with daily life”.
Clive Worthington travelled to Hungary in 2008 for the placement of dental implants and then saw the same dentist, Dr Eszter Gömbös, over a period of seven years in the UK for follow-up appointments. But instead of a perfect smile, The Independent newspaper reported that Mr Worthington ‘suffered from a misaligned bite and trouble chewing and swallowing following failed treatment to give him dental implants and a fitted denture.
He also suffered from repeated gum infections, constant gum pain, headaches and a deviated jaw’.
Dr Gömbös, who at the time worked at Perfect Profiles – which ceased trading in 2022 - was found to be at fault for the work by the General Dental Council in 2017. She no longer works in the UK but was not ‘struck off’ the register. Instead, she was told she would have to work under supervised conditions and declare her misconduct to future employers.
Mr Worthington, a retired joiner, was awarded a £86,000 in damages and £30,000 in costs by a Chelmsford County Court but was never paid after Dental Defence Union (DDU) argued “discretionary indemnity”. The amount has been reported to be a ‘record sum’ for a dental negligence claim.
ITV News explained “A hidden catch in how dentists are insured means they are considered to be fully covered by the General Dentist Council (GDC) through what are known as mutual societies. Wholly owned by their members, these mutual societies are not insurance companies but offer professional discretionary indemnity as part of their membership benefits. This means that successful compensation claims by patients are not guaranteed to be paid out”.
The Managing Director of the Dental Law Partnership (DLP) Chris Dean who qualified as a dentist but is no longer on the register said the problem lay with the "acceptability of dentists being members of a mutual society by the General Dentist Council as amounting to appropriate indemnity cover.
"Apart from healthcare professionals, I don’t know of any other areas of commercial activity in the UK where being a member of a society is good enough to protect third parties. And that’s the point, because it’s patients who can’t get anywhere with their claims - they can run a claim or they can have a successful outcome for the claim but it can’t be enforced if the dentist doesn’t have assets or is not in the country."
Dentists are required to have ‘appropriate’ cover but ‘discretionary cannot be appropriate’ said Mr Dean.
In a statement, the DDU said that whilst it never comments on individual cases “We would however point out that the DDU is part of a not-for-profit mutual membership organisation which provides its members with indemnity for clinical negligence claims for treatment provided in the UK and Ireland”.
The statement continued "It is rare that we are unable to offer our members support: over the past five years we have assisted well over 99.5% of members who have approached us for support with claims and other legal matters.”
So bad was Mr Worthington’s pain that he struggled to sleep or eat. Eventually Dr Gömbös told him that she was unable to help any further and recommended he seek treatment elsewhere. His daughter Gina Tilly reports that Dr Gömbös gave him a ‘dental tool’ that another clinician might require.
The stress of seeking compensation whilst still in horrendous pain only to see a ‘loophole’ being exploited to deny a payout was the final straw for Mr Worthington according to his daughter who told ITV News “I think in the end it’s a major thing that contributed towards him feeling completely helpless and like he was in so much pain that he didn’t feel like he wanted to carry on.
"It’s such a tragic end to a life. It just makes me so mad - that it didn’t have to end this way."
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