When Mark was in his twenties, he had his wisdom teeth out in hospital: ‘I paid for it, it was sweet. I didn’t have to worry’. Mark was employed for many years and managed to pay his own and his children’s expenses. It was not until he was retrenched and unable to find another job, that it became a struggle to cover the household bills. While Mark made sure his two children visited the dentist, he was unable to afford private treatment for himself: ‘You can’t afford it when you are unemployed’. So some 15 years ago he contacted a community dentist and was placed on the public dental waiting list. He never heard back or made it to the front of the queue.

Untreated, Mark’s cavities worsened. Describing his oral hygiene regime, he says:

You feel like you’re fighting a losing battle. You’re brushing and brushing and your teeth still look black and rotten and you think: Come on! What do I have to do?

Excluded from timely dental care, Mark suffered frequent infections and lived in pain. Coping the best he could, he said:

I have my own pain control. My mouth swells sometimes with pus and it really hurts. I get a sharp object, pierce it and within a day the pain goes away.

Mark’s poor oral health had an impact on his nutrition. Even when he cut his food up into small pieces, he described chewing as ‘excruciating’. While he enjoyed catching up with family at home, he said he never went out. Wearing a beard to hide his mouth, he said, ‘I have no social life whatsoever. I’m too scared to go out and talk to someone’.

Keen to work, Mark regularly applied for jobs. Even though he was called in for interviews, this was a demoralising experience. He said, ‘once they see me, I’ve lost the job’. Having bad teeth and being passed over for work was a vicious circle which negatively affected Mark’s health, leisure and income. He observed:

If I had a job I could pay for this myself, but I can’t get a job because of the way I look.  Just a week ago, I failed to get a job because of the way I look. The job was demonstrating solar water heating but that’s really hard if you have no front teeth – it doesn’t look good. They didn’t like my face.

A participant in the Brotherhood of St Laurence’s Teeth First Trial, Mark at last received treatment. He required surgery to remove 12 teeth and had to be fitted for dentures. Had timely public dental treatment been available when he put his name on the waiting list 15 years ago, this surgery have been avoided and his teeth could have been saved.

Mark reflects:

If it wasn’t for the Brotherhood I would still be waiting. I don’t think anyone recognises dental problems, I don’t think anyone believes there are dental problems. People have heart attacks and we have Medicare to pay for the expenses but no one believes in teeth because there is nothing set down for teeth.

Thinking of the numerous others in a similar situation, Mark says he hopes something can be done to change things.