The Wait

If ever you needed work on your teeth, it might be worthwhile to consider DIY. A visit to the National Dental Centre today ate up two plus hours of waiting, another hour of actual dental work, and half an hour of post-work debrief. To add to your woes, the cost of this exercise ran up a princely sum (four-figure). So half a day of your life gone and a big hole in your wallet.

I'm not sure why dental centres make appointments for patients - the surety of that taking place at the appointed hour is as good as the odds of one striking the lottery within a ten-year period. Worse, there's hardly anything to occupy one's time, unless you count reading dog-eared magazines from a couple of years ago as fun.

To be fair, they had the telly on, but current affairs aren't exactly appropriate distractions. Maybe dentists are overworked, underpaid and under-appreciated, but they don't have to take it out on unwitting patients.

I wonder if an overhaul of the appointment system is overdue? What's the alternative, you ask? How about an RFID chip-triggered wrist band, linked into a Wi-Fi network, that notifies you when it's your turn to see the dentist, but leaves you free of the waiting room. All you need to do is to SMS the admin clerks that you've arrived, pick up your wristband, and wander off till it was time to see the dentist.

Another piece of advice - look after your teeth well, so you don't need this grief. Nothing is worth it.