Dental patient's £15,000 payout for a decade of agony

Anne-Marie Hargreaves (31, pictured), from Conisbrough, sought out specialist dental negligence lawyers after more than a decade of pain.

She was paid the huge sum for her treatment at Carcroft Dental Practice — now known as Mydentist — after the Dental Law Partnership intervened.

Ms Hargreaves’ trouble began in April 2003, when she started suffering toothache.

She went to see Dr James Murdoch at the Carcroft practice, who put a filling one of her upper molars.

A week later, she returned, complaining of pain in the same tooth, so Dr Murdoch put in a second filling.

Still Ms Hargreaves was in pain and, five months after the first filling, she received a third.

“I couldn’t really understand why I needed three fillings in less than three months,” she said.

“The pain was awful — it never went away, so I had to keep going back to the dentist.

“But the only treatment Dr Murdoch provided was filling after filling.”

In 2005, Ms Hargreaves’ began having pain in a second tooth. 

Again, Dr Murdoch put in a filling — but the pain persisted for two years.

In 2007, he removed the tooth, after a failed attempt to restore it.

“He was my childhood dentist so I trusted him to stop the pain,” said Ms Hargreaves. “I just thought it would be routine.

“In hindsight, I suppose these ongoing problems should have seemed strange.

“But I just thought I had problems with my teeth and Dr Murdoch would resolve them. 

“You think your dentist knows what they’re doing.”

In 2014, the pained patient was again suffering severe toothache. 

Dr Murdoch placed more fillings, but none of the treatments worked.

Ms Hargreaves returned the following year, this time seeing Dr Zlatina Pavlova.

“She told me I needed root canal treatment,” said Ms Hargreaves. “I thought things couldn’t get any worse, so I let her go ahead with the procedure.

“But it turned out that she didn’t perform the treatment properly — the tooth has since had to be extracted because it was so badly damaged.”

In total, Ms Hargreaves suffered six failed fillings and lost two teeth to inadequate treatments.

Staff at the Dental Law Partnership looked at her notes and found that Dr Murdoch had failed to spot and treat decay visible in X-rays.

Instead, he had repeatedly placed fillings over the decay, causing Ms Hargreaves persistent pain.

The Dental Law Partnership took on the case in 2016 — it was settled in May 2018, although the dentist did not admit liability.

Ms Hargreaves said: “It’s so frustrating to know that this was all avoidable.

“These 12 years of pain, repeat treatments and not knowing whether the problem would ever be resolved really took its toll.

“Eating became really difficult — it was such a painful process that it made me really dread mealtimes.

“Had I been treated properly from the start, I wouldn’t have had to endure years of pain, trips to the dentist or lost two teeth.”

A spokesman for Mydentist said: “Patient care is our priority and we're disappointed Mrs Hargreaves has had this experience. 

“We’re unable to comment further on this issue as we acquired the dental practice in 2011 and the patient settlement was reached by the dentist, not the practice. 

“Dr Murdoch and Dr Pavlova are no longer working at the practice.”