Extracted!

By Ged Mahony

Every incident and event talked about in this book really did
happen. For a long time I could do little to establish that what I
said was in fact the case. Now, through the freedom of information act
I am able to substantiate everything I say.
If anybody wishes to verify this, particularly organisations like:
G.D.C., G.H.B., S.D.E.B., the R.D.O. service in Scotland, D.P.S.
and Scottish Home and Health, as well as members of the public,
particularly those affected by these events, consult my website:
grampiandentalscandal.co.uk.
Although it is quite substantial, I think you will find all you require to
satisfy any doubts you might have about the truth of what was really
going on and for how long it was allowed to continue unfettered. M.N.
was the tip of an Iceberg.
Through the course of my career, from time to time, people would ask
me why dentists seemed to suffer a lot with bad backs? The answer
was simple; Because they are spineless fuckers! I would reply.
If you think that this was the end of it, think on. On my return to
England after a short while events similar to these started to happen
all over again. This time I was ready, and whats more I had acquired a
fifth columnist. Book two will be called The Mole I can assure you
it will be every bit as intriguing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Mar 17, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456847852

Book preview

Chapter 1

Brrrrr, brrrr, . . . brrrr, brrrr . . .

‘You get the ‘phone.’

‘OK.’

‘Hello?’

‘Hello there.’

‘Hi, this is Nigel, Nigel Henderson.’

‘Oh, hi there. How are things?’

‘Not so bad.’

‘Good.’

‘I’m ringing you about the job.’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Well, I’ve seen everybody else, and I’d like to offer you the position.’

‘Thanks, thanks a lot. Er, . . . can you give me some time to think about it?’

‘Yes, but not too long. Shall we say, twenty-four hours.’

‘OK, that’ll be fine. I’ll give you a ring tomorrow and let you know.’

‘OK, then tomorrow it is.’

‘Thanks again, goodbye now, goodbye.’

‘Cheerio.’

I hung up, feeling quite elated. I’ve got the job. I shouted for Christine, my wife.

‘Guess what?’

‘What?’

‘I’ve been offered that job, the one in Scotland, what do you think?’

‘Take it I suppose, that’s what we went up there for.’

I had no doubt in my mind that that was exactly what I was going to do. The next day at about the same time, the ‘phone goes again.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello, it’s Nigel again. What’s it to be?’

‘I’ll take it, if it’s still open?’

‘Good, welcome aboard.’

‘Thanks, . . . When would you like me to start?’

‘As soon as possible, we’re overwhelmed at the moment.’

‘Great, but it’ll be a few months yet, there’s a lot to get organised.’

‘Yes, I realise that, but I must have someone soon.’

‘Will two months be OK?’

‘When will that be?’

‘About the middle of March.’

‘I think so.’

‘Good, and the deal still as we discussed at Christmas?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘50 per cent.’

‘Yes.’

‘And what about a contract? It’s a big step for me, and I’ve been getting messed about by my current boss, a guy I never thought would do that to me, and I haven’t got a leg to stand on.’

‘Surely, I’ll get on to the BDA and get their standard associateship one.’

‘Oh, good, is there anything else?’

‘Just the usual forms for getting on the health authority list and so on. I’ll forward them on to you.’

‘No, don’t bother. I’ll get on to them myself.’

‘OK then, I think that’s everything, I’ll be seeing you.’

‘Yes . . . I’ll ring you a bit nearer the time to give you an exact starting date.’

‘Fine.’

‘Goodbye then.’

‘Goodbye.’

I hung up. It’s official. I’ve got the job, and I’m out of this rut I’ve gotten into over the last couple of years—no more Widnes, no more motorway driving. Let’s go out and celebrate.

As you could imagine, the next couple of months were a bit hectic, putting the house up for sale, getting things arranged to move, getting things packed. It was all very exciting but very tiring. I started to get paranoid about the chest pains I was experiencing. I went as far as to see my GP. She dismissed it as stress over the move. I guess she was right. Inexorably the weeks went by and it was nearly departure date. There was no sign of the house being sold, so I arranged for ‘Crusher’ to be a house-sitter. He was a reliable dole-ite with a keen sense of something I’ve never been able to pinpoint, but nevertheless a good oak.

I played my last game of rugby for the ‘old boys’ the Wednesday evening before we left. The semi-final of the ‘Damar Cup’ against ‘Old Rocks’. I got injured and had to retire. I felt that there was something ominous about it. I was normally so durable and reliable, and I got taken off in my last game. An ignominious end to what had not been a bad career. Only a year or so earlier I was the club captain. Anyhow my rugby playing was over and I was looking forward to a sporting twilight, skiing on the slopes of Cairn Gorm and the like.

As arranged my starting date was 26th March, a Monday, and an air of melancholia fell over me—farewell parties, a presentation of an engraved rose bowl from the old boys with a touching, if not sardonic, verse.

I walked the dog for the last time over Bidston Hill and Thurstaston Common. I was feeling really miserable but tried to hide it and appear optimistic. We stacked the Cortina Estate up to the roof along with Ollie in his carrycot, all five months of him, and got Crusher even more stacked up in the Scirocco. We had a house arranged in a village called Aberchirder (or Foggy, as it was affectionately known) on Fifty-eight Main Street.

Saturday morning arrived, and we somewhat reluctantly set off on the great trek. That first journey, a first of many, was fraught with hazards. I don’t think we’d ever driven through such bad weather before. Torrential rain, very heavy snow in the Lake District, fog, and probably worst of all, when driving through the pitch black darkness of the A92 North of Dundee, the rain, which was being driven off the North Sea with such a ferocity that it was horizontal. A truly memorable journey. We finally arrived, and some Good Samaritan had lit a welcoming fire.

‘This place can’t be that bad,’ I thought to myself. How wrong could I have been.

We unstacked the cars. It was still pouring with rain. Whilst Christine fed Ollie, I went for a well-earned beer with Crusher at what was to become my local during my stay in Foggy, the Fife arms hotel.

The next day I ring in to say we’ve arrived. We’re invited round to the practice for tea and so dutifully we arrive at about four o’clock. A fairly sombre affair. Their daughter Fiona offered to take Dobsy (our dog) for a walk with their dog. OK, why not? They return; we make our apologies and leave. A haunting feeling of having made a huge mistake hangs over me. Too intent on trying to give the impression that I want to make a go of it, I try to avoid conversation about what was probably the most boring and uncomfortable Sunday afternoons, I had ever experienced. We settle in for another night in Aberchirder. The wind was howling in the eves. There was a smattering of snow on an otherwise windswept backdrop of dark foreboding hills. What have we let ourselves in for? Only tomorrow will tell, for tomorrow I start work.

Chapter 2

I arrived at South Castle Street and made myself known to the rest of the staff, all seemed busy and efficient. I deposited myself in my surgery. I meet Vera, what a pleasant person. I cannot understand a word she says for a while; whenever I say anything, all I get is: ‘Aye, aye, ken, aye’.

But I quite soon got into the dialect. I think I hit it off with Vera right away. Within no time at all I was inundated with patients whose attitude to dentistry was light years away from what I was used to. In fairness, I had been told that the practice was based on intravenous sedation and anaesthesia. I couldn’t possibly have thought it to be so ingrained in a population as it appeared, but it was. Within hours people from all walks of life passed before me, all wanting, expecting, even demanding the same treatment; whatever it was, they must all be: ‘asleep’.

It was really difficult to handle. I didn’t want to upset them, but I couldn’t go along with it. More amazingly, Vera, as soon as I suggested treatment of any sort, would start getting the ‘Brietal’ ready. There was a litre bottle of the stuff slung under the arm of the dental chair the patient sat in. Some archaic reusable system of sterilised pipes valves and syringes which all linked up so that once a patient was hooked up to the bottle, one could draw up as much Brietal as one needed and pump it directly into the so-called patient. They loved it, and couldn’t you just tell. There were people from all sorts of backgrounds having it. One anticipated the lower strata of society—the toothbrush shy fisherman or farmer, but it carried right through to the middle class ‘wifie’ from Crovie or the like. They all did the same thing, as soon as you’d say, ‘Oh, I can fix that for you now if you like.’

They’d start rolling up their sleeve.

‘Oh, there’s no need for that,’ I’d say.

And they’d indignantly reply, ‘But I always go to sleep.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Whenever I have treatment, I go to sleep.’

‘You mean you have an anaesthetic?’

‘Of course, I dinnie . . . thaat’s fit ye ha’ in hospital, I just gee ta sleep.’

‘But it’s the same thing,’ I’d protest.

‘Naa, i tis na.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘But Mr Rabertson always put ma’ tae’ sleep.’

‘But all I want to do is, . . . blaa blaa, blaa blaa.’

I was wasting my time. The population had been brought up on intravenous dentistry, and because the place was such a dental backwater, modern attitudes towards single-handed anaesthetist-operator technique hadn’t quite filtered through yet. Or, so it would have appeared. I’ve just introduced the guru of dentistry in Grampian, Albert Robertson, who had sold out to Nigel Henderson, I think when he had seen the writing on the wall.

He was the aficionado of single-handed dentistry/anaesthesia locally, . . .  There was no doubt he was the uncrowned king of it, and had been so for the last thirty years. In itself I don’t think anyone could criticise him; my only complaint was that he trained other dentists up for obvious reasons to do likewise, and some of these were not half so proficient as Albert. This was the list of patients I had inherited. I can quite honestly say that every patient I saw that was a regular had the most abysmal dentistry I had ever seen. No wonder I upset them. Every treatment plan was based around ripping out all existing fillings and replacing them, and worse still, doing it whilst they were awake, . . . heresy. As you could imagine, this regime went down like a lead submarine with the vast majority of patients that frequented this practice. Very soon I was getting feedback and it wasn’t very popular with the Hendersons. Nevertheless I, to my shame, tried to show willing, and those patients who where most insistent were booked in, and an anaesthetic session was arranged for myself and Nigel to do the work. The arrangement was that Nigel, who had assured me he was a qualified anaesthetist—he claimed to have done the qualification in Australia and backed it up with lots of documentation, and had done all the practice he needed to do on ‘Abbos’ in the outback until he had got it right. He would come through and neutralise the ‘patient’ or assist me in doing so, until I got the hang of it. Then, one or other of us would do the ‘cons’ (conservation, dentalspeak for fillings). This wasn’t how it worked out in practice. Sure enough, Nigel would be booked in to come across into my surgery and direct the situation, but he never relinquished his commitment to his patients. So I would be hanging around, listening to his anaesthetic antics and waiting for him to arrive. He eventually would, and then find an appropriate vein, link up the patient and, as quick as flash, would say: ‘Oh well, you seem to be managing here quite well!’ and promptly disappear back to his bottomless pit of patients awaiting their ‘fix’. It took me about a millisecond to realise that this arrangement was not going to last long, and an awful dawning of the reality of the situation descended upon me. But what could I do—I was there and committed, I had to go along with it.

As the weeks went by, I was having some success in trying to wean the public off what they assumed was an automatic right when having dental treatment. People would come considerable distances to be treated here; literally, they would book holidays just to have their dental treatment, as long as they were put to sleep. I can recall cases, even in youngsters, where the suggestion of coming back to have, say, a simple polish was totally unthinkable.

‘But caanee tha’ be din nixt visit, ha?’

‘Yes, that’s what I mean.’

‘Aan seex minths?’

‘No, how about next week?’

‘Bit yee dinnee unerstaand, we waaant it aall din naaw, y ken?’

‘But fillings need time to set before you polish them.’

‘We dinnee ha theis prablem bifar fit, Mr Rabitson.’

I was up against a tide of public opinion I couldn’t argue with. People would come, expecting all their treatment to be completed in one visit and, of course, done under general anaesthetic; then, goodbye, see you in six months. Any suggestion of a course of treatment, that is, to return for more than one sitting was responded to indignantly:

‘Baa we awas come a’heer th’ once. Cannee ye nae polish ma teeeth aun seex minths? Arrr caan gee ta ma auwn dinist fi’ tha’eef tha’s fit aar fant.’

This was the sort of response I kept on getting, as if this place was something special, but, of course, it was to them. This is why there was a fall of in work. What was a deluge had become a trickle, not because of what I did, but how. The logic being:

‘Why should I drive from, say, Inverurie or the like, just to get my teeth filled in the same manner as a dentist would do in my own town, that is, using local anaesthetic.’

The argument was indefensible, so inevitably I was driving work away from the practice. Nevertheless, I did have some success. A Ms Caroline Hogg presented herself one day. The usual sort of conversation ensued.

‘Oh, I hate the dentist. I’m terrified, I always go to sleep, I have to.’

‘How about trying it this way?’

‘Oh no, you don’t understand.’

‘But I do.’

‘Oh no, you don’t.’

‘Can I see Mr Robertson?’

‘No, he’s retired.’

‘But he always sorts me out.’

The usual resistance. Where do I start? Anyhow, in this case I agreed to use some Valium, a type of sedative called ‘Hypnoval’. She was booked in and I tried to sedate her. It was a cold day and I could not find any veins. I got Nigel in and he tried but to no avail. I felt quite nauseous at the amount of times he tried to get the needle into her; she must have felt like a pincushion. In the end we both gave up, and Nigel suggested coming back on a warmer day when her veins might be a little more cooperative.

To my surprise she did return, and I recall vividly saying that I was not going to attempt any sort of IV and that if she wanted anything doing it was under local anaesthesia or not at all. She conceded and I did the work she required, and not altogether to my surprise, she thanked me and admitted how stupid she had been over the issue of demanding an anaesthetic. There were a few converts like this one, but sadly not enough.

By now, I had got to know the other associate quite well, Malcolm. He was relatively local and was quite popular with everyone, everyone except the Hendersons, that is. I was given the initial impression by the Hendersons that he was ‘deadwood’ and that they were looking for a way to remove him from the practice. My presence was supposed to precipitate that. I didn’t hit it off too well with him at first. I suppose that was inevitable as he obviously thought the same thing (that I was there to replace him), but in a short time we became fairly friendly. This friendship was to prove quite productive in future events, but deep down he was only feathering his own nest. Not that I would blame him for that; after all, the common enemy was rapidly becoming the Hendersons.

Unfortunately I trusted him a little more than I should have, and even though he was a good fifth columnist after my demise in the practice, he always put his own interests first; but I was short on friends and I needed all the help I could get. In the meantime my wife, Christine, had been busy looking for a somewhere to live, we’d go driving around at weekends or in the evenings and try to suss out an area we liked.

A couple of places were considered. Whitehills was one I remember, but most places were a bit remote. Then Cullen House was mentioned. We drove there one evening after seeing the brochures. It was virtually exactly what I’d had in mind. I recalled before going to Scotland reading an article in The Sunday Times about very reasonably priced Scottish castles and I’d joke with my friends about buying one. Sure enough, this was just what I wanted or the nearest thing to it. We arrived in Cullen, a picture postcard fishing village with Victorian viaducts dominating the view. Thirteen archways through which panoramic vistas of what must be one of the cleanest beaches in the country, Cullen Bay. It was flanked by the golf course and the sea and at the eastern end, ‘The Seatown’, a warren of fishermen’s ‘bothies’ and small, but picturesque harbour. It was too good to be true. From the square we drove up Grant Street and through some rather imposing large wrought iron gates of Cullen House. I drove up the drive, a good half mile, and eventually into view loomed the house, albeit in some state of disarray as it was still a building site, but nevertheless I was impressed. Mrs Douglas, the estate agent’s wife, shows us around. We’re getting the hard sell, but there’s no need, I love the place. What was to become our house was one of six units that were built on to the main house as a service area and formed a quadrangle. ‘Playfairers court’ and we were number one. So after a good look around what was the only completed part of the main building, the ‘South Tower’, owned by the developer Kit Martin, and a couple of units in our quad, and of course ‘The Kitchen’. This was the residence and site office of Doug Forrest, the on-site architect, and his wife, Carol; they were to become good friends but with quite sad consequences. Without hesitation we buy the place; we were now committed to living here in Scotland and determine to make a go of it. Unlike England, one cannot back out of a house purchase once agreed upon. I had to commit myself to staying up here for at least the next five years or so, which had been our intention. Had I been able to back out and leave Scotland, as I still owned my house back in England, things would not have taken the disastrous course I was inexorably tumbling headlong into. I arranged the finance via the Bank of Scotland in Macduff, and I met there in the process two people who stood by me more than anybody else. They were Sandy Barclay at the bank and, to my utter amazement, my solicitor. I spoke to Sandy and he suggested going next door to ‘Alexander George & Co.’ solicitors, so I did. I was introduced to Mr Acton, a thin, slightly old-fashioned sort of person about my age, but I think probably that to be the only thing we had in common. I was not really bothered; my only intention was to buy the house, and one required the services of a solicitor. How fortuitous that meeting was. Unbeknown to me then, but how much I would come to rely on him in those bleak miserable days ahead when at times he would be the only ear I could bend. Even to