Dental tourists face corrective surgery

UP to 80 “dental tourists” will this year have to pay for expensive corrective surgery when they get home because of botched procedures abroad.

Two doctors from the Dublin Dental Hospital have gathered figures for the first quarter of this year which show that 21 patients had to undergo costly and lengthy corrective surgery in Ireland during the three-month period. They said these figures are probably the same for the rest of the year.

In one case, a patient who had travelled abroad had to pay €80,000 on returning home to correct a mistake made by a foreign dentist who gave them extensive bridge and route canal treatment that was not needed.