"Lost Dentures"

DOCTOR... THEY'VE LOST MY DENTURES

My mother, aged 91 years young, was admitted to East Surrey Hospital in late June of this year.

Within days of admission her lower set of dentures went missing and despite searches by hospital staff have never been found.

It’s believed that the dentures were removed at night and handed to a member of staff who enclosed them in some tissues and left them on the bedside cabinet in the ward. Subsequently during routine cleaning the tissues containing the teeth were disposed of in the waste bin adjacent to her bed.

Now at Crawley Hospital two months on she is still without her teeth even though this hospital has in house dental facility.

It appears that the two hospitals have different NHS funding sources and Crawley is not prepared to use its money to correct a problem inherited from East Surrey.

The latest:

I have been told today by Crawley that ESH accepts liability and will pay for a replacement set. However, their options are to use ESH or my mother's dentist in East Grinstead.

However, Crawley hospital has a dental department which has outside contractors who do dentures. Since mother is in Crawley hospital it would make sense to do the job on site? Crawley claim this is for emergencies only. After more than two months I would call this an emergency!