Cape Town - A mother is demanding answers after a dentist at the Delft Day Hospital extracted the wrong teeth from her four-year-old son and without an anaesthetic.
Barbara Arend, 37, said she was asked to leave the surgery because children are calmer without the parents present.
She says she showed the female dentist the rotten teeth, then left.
Her son was given an injection and sent to the waiting area for the anaesthetic to kick in.
“He rubbed the left
bottom side where the sore teeth were. I could see the gel was applied on the left, which was the correct,”
Barbara says.
She says when he went back to get the teeth extracted, she stood right outside the door and suddenly heard him scream and immediately went inside.
“I saw the teeth were out but the cotton was on the right side to stem the blood,” the mom says.
“I asked her why she had taken out those teeth when she had not numbed it.
Numbed
“She said she had numbed it, and that she asked my four-year-old son which teeth to pull and he showed her where.
“I could see it on her face that she knew she had made an error, but she refused to admit it.”
Picture: Daily Voice.
The mom immediately went to report the matter and was taken to the head dentist, a Mr Smith.
“She knew what she did and she ran away. We went to look for her and she was gone 20 minutes later,” says Barbara.
“Mr Smith said he would fix what she did, but my child is afraid now. the woman has traumatised my child.”
Provincial Health spokesperson, Maret Lesch, says the parent or guardian is usually asked to wait outside during an extraction as it can be distracting if the
parent is present.
According to Lesch, the dentist says she found that the teeth on the right side required more urgent extraction than the teeth on the left side.
“The dentist proceeded to inject local anaesthetic on the right mandibular side and extracted two primary molars when it was numbed.
“The dentist has been requested to allow parent/guardian(s) into the surgery as to avoid similar situations in future,” Lesch said.