Patient awarded £27,500 compensation from dentist

A patient who was left needing extensive dental surgery after "unnecessary" implants were installed in her gums has been awarded £27,500 from a Reigate dentist.

Harriet Moggridge, 26, who was born with a rare genetic condition which left her with less than half the normal number of adult teeth, had hoped she would finally get the smile she always wanted when she agreed to two teeth implants.

But her experience soon turned into a dental nightmare after she was slapped with a bill for four implants rather than two, which she hadn't agreed to and which began to fail just a few months later.

"It was a nightmare, as you can imagine," said Miss Moggridge.

"I'm feeling a lot better now that we've won but it's still annoying that I've had to go through all this.

"I've still got to have corrective surgery done so most of the money is going on that."

Her problems started in July 2010 following the surgery in which Miss Moggridge thought her dentist, Dr Henk Freeke of the Ringley Park Dental Practice in Reigate, was going to remove two teeth and install two implants.

But after waking up from surgery with a black eye and an intense pain she immediately knew something was wrong and sought a second opinion.

"I went to another dentist in Teddington and he said he was shocked at what he saw," she continued.

"I couldn't believe the look on his face when he saw the right side of my head.

"When we did the corrective surgery he didn't have to use anything to get the implants out – they just fell out.

"Also because I suffer from Ectodermal Dysplasia I don't have much bone in my mouth anyway and the implants were too big for my gums and they'd gone into my sinuses.

"My other dentist did a CT scan, which he said should have been taken before but wasn't, and saw straight away it was wrong."

After three years of surgery, and with more still ahead of her, Miss Moggridge says she is hopeful she will now be able to put this saga behind her and use her compensation to fund more corrective surgery to put right everything that has happened before now.

"It wasn't supposed to take this long," she added.

"It just doesn't do your confidence any good because this is something that should've been done two or three years ago, so it's quite depressing.

"Now I've found a really good dentist who's helping me out."

Yvonne Berry, practice manager at Ringley Park Dental Practice, said: "We're disappointed that the treatment didn't go as well as expected and we hope the settlement goes some way to settling the matter for this patient."

This article is courtesy of This is Surrey Today.