There follows a guest post by Daily Sceptic reader Julie Sandliands, who was inspired by our recent post on spreading a little scepticism to write about her recent visit to the Covid time warp that is her local dentist. If other readers have more stories of spreading their scepticism amongst unsuspecting Covidians, email us here.
I try to be nice. I really do. When approached by a mask-wearing individual, jumping into a busy road in an attempt to keep a sensible social distance, I fight the eyeball rolling, tutting and shaking of head urges. I tend to look in the opposite direction whilst reverse counting from five to one. Mostly this tactic not only saves the other individual from my irritation, but also keeps my stress at a healthy level. Yes, your mask doesn’t protect me from either respiratory viruses or a decline in mental health.
However, it was an emergency visit to the dentist that tested my patience and even reverse-counting, repeatedly, had absolutely no effect.
A nasty abscess on a back upper tooth was causing some discomfort. However, it was a beautiful sunny spring morning, and despite looking like a lopsided hamster, all was well with the world.
As I walked into the reception area, two masked receptionists looked up from their screens:
Receptionist 1: You can’t just come in here.
Me, smiling: Good morning… Why not?
Receptionist 2: It’s to keep everybody safe.
Me, looking around: Safe from what?
Receptionist 2: Covid. It’s the rules.
Me looking around again: But there’s no one here apart from us!
Receptionist 2: It doesn’t matter, and you need to wear a mask.
Me: Sorry, I’m unable to wear a mask… Erm, so what should I have done, you know, to speak to you?
Receptionist 2: You should’ve waited outside and we’d have come and got you.
Me: But how would you know I’m outside to come and get me?
Receptionist 1, incredulous: You come in and tell us you’re here!
Me: Ah, I see. Do you want me to do that now or are you happy that I am here and would like to make an emergency appointment?
I returned that afternoon at 2pm, determined to be a nice person. I followed the instructions I had been given that morning; I went into the spacious, well-ventilated reception area and told the two masked receptionists I had arrived. I then went back outside and sat on one of the two plastic chairs in a narrow hallway. A couple of minutes later one of the receptionists appeared wearing: a mask, a visor, a plastic pinny and a pair of royal blue plastic gloves.
Receptionist: Do you have any symptoms?
Me, tapping my ear whilst cocking my head to one side: I’m sorry I can’t hear you.
Receptionist, much louder: Do you have any symptoms?
Me: Yes, I am in a lot of pain and the left-hand-side of my face is swollen.
Receptionist, even louder: No, do you have any Covid symptoms?
Me, slightly irritated and at the same volume: No, and I wouldn’t be standing here if I did!
Receptionist, reduced volume: Could you use the hand sanitiser please?
Me: No, it’s carcinogenic and plays havoc with my atopic dermatitis, sorry eczema…
Receptionist, handing me a blue surgical mask: Can you put this on?
Me: No!
Receptionist, irritated: Ah, you like being a rebel, do you?
Me: That’s an interesting choice of word, “rebel”. Do you mean like the harmless rebel student who never wears a school tie?
Receptionist, retracting the mask but at the same time raising her right hand, grasping a forehead thermometer gun: I’m going to take your temperature.
Me, huge sigh: I wouldn’t bother, I’m having a hot flush. Damned menopause!
Not another word was uttered. Twenty minutes later, tooth extracted and £122 poorer, I left waving cheerily at safely clad personnel, both of whom ignored my friendly gesture for yet another screen fix. Oh well, I tried. I really did! Perhaps, next time, a piece of cotton around the offending tooth tied to a door handle would be less painful for all concerned.
Five, four, three, two, one…
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In spite of the withdrawal of all CV-19 guidelines by the government last month the NHS is still implementing them. Currently at Royal South Hants and family member had treatment cancelled as declined LFT. It was only on getting stroppy on their behalf, quoting from studies from this site and a legal letter we had that treatment was re-offered while we waited. Others were not so fortunate – as we went through saw patients and their accompanying family member left in distress in lift/stairwell told it was Trust policy that no visitors were allowed not even into the practice waiting room.
I want to my dentist a few weeks back and had none of this obfuscation.
It was brilliant, no masks for patients, no thermodynamics just like the old days and they are regarded by the CQC as an outstanding practice.
Some people sadly live in fear………
There’s no point in being nice and non confrontational with such people.They are impervious to logic and common sense. Just treat them as mentally ill.
I fear you’re right 😔
£122 for an extraction? Did it involve use of a JCB digger or other heavy machinery?
And did it include a discount for needing to deal with the imbeciles in reception?
Same as vets, just a very lucrative job for most of them. Pirates trading in people’s pain/misery.
I left my to tooth during lockdown , rinsed with salt and water and it obligingly fell out by itself. Much easier.
Great article Julie. I enjoyed reading it but feel so let down by my profession. It would be good to see dental practice personnel attending courses that use your experience to demonstrate how a dental practice should not go about dealing with patients who are only trying their best to cooperate and do the right thing.
I would have just said: “International conventions state you must provide fully informed consent for any medical intervention, including preventative, ie masks, and as no information or evidence exists for their effectiveness for stopping viral transmission, I do not consent.”
Maskdroids – thoughtless automata.
I had a tooth out early last month – no mask not questioned at all everyone else masked
Well done Julie for remaining nice and polite, and also for not giving in.
Excellent performance. I’m afraid I would have lost my rag straight away. I’ve now been banned from two vets for questioning their Nazi covid rules and in the last instance their common sense and intelligence, both of which they are meant to have an abundance. But sadly not in this case.
Back in January after painstakingly making the decision, I took my elderly sick Black Labrador Josh to be PTS. He was on his last legs poor old boy. As you can imagine I was in a fairly emotional state when I ‘phoned that Wednesday morning (in fact even now writing this is bringing tears to my eyes). I didn’t really take it in when the receptionist said I would have to take a LFT before I attended the surgery and told her I wouldn’t be doing any such thing. “Oh” she said reiterated the appointment time and bayed me good morning. Usually we aren’t allowed in without first reporting to the ‘laptop carrying’ receptionist in the car park and only then when we had the okay call from the vet. I was surprised therefore when the she came out and announced that we would have to have Josh put… Read more »
What a sad experience for you. I’m glad Josh passed peacefully and in a dignified manner in the end. You have to wonder who are the real sick animals at times!
Thank you you’re very kind.
OMG. Total sympathy. You must have been traumatised. That was beyond appalling and totally unprofessional. Can’t you report them to their professional organisation?
We’re facing the PTS scenario in the not-too-distant future and currently the vet still has a ‘one-person only per pet’ edict but I hope and pray that changes soon. I actually don’t know what the rules are for vets in Scotland (we live there) but there is an irritating message when you call about services taking longer “being post-pandemic” and I have no idea why that should be the case. We’ve still to wear masks and so do the vets and other staff. I’m so fed up of the whole Covid thing…
Thank you. Sorry to hear things are still bad “north of the border “. Sounds like you’re going to have a fight on your hands thanks to your wonderful leader! At least you’ve got David Scott (UK Column) a wonderful man.
Breaks my heart.
Truly fucking disgusting.
On the whole, I don’t regard vets as having the best interests of animals at heart anyway. If they did, then they wouldn’t be sooo bloody expensive, and have quite such a mark-up on their medicines etc. Pah!
Vets, doctors, police you name it my respect for them has gone out of the window in the last two years. It’s very sad apart from a few who’ve spoken out.
Well done. You did exactly the right thing.
Thank you.
So called ‘nice’ people make the best Nazis.
It’s a cult
Whats a dentist??? Moved back to Mid Norfolk 5 years ago from Hampshire .Registered with local BUPA dental place in Town. However they have not got enough dentists ,pre covid so no check ups etc. Now post covid I do need some work .Same situation. Thought I could go private. Tried a couple in town .Both have closed their waiting lists for private work as they have 200 plus people on them ?????
Nearest town with vacancies .on lists suggested is Skegness , only 70 miles away and a 2 hour plus drive. What a joke .
Excellent piece, very well written. Thanks for sharing. Makes my interactions with Specsavers last week seem positively hostile (but they deserved it).
Thanks for the giggle. Made my morning a little happier.
I have a use a private dental practice that has been entirely sceptic from the outset . When I first went in 2020, the receptionist gave a loud sigh of relief when I made it clear I wasn’t a member of the cult, and we had a chat about the psychological warfare. Then I had a nice chat with the dentist and hygienist about what a load of bollocks it all was from a medical perspective. All procedures were normal throughout, except they were forced to wear a respirator for drill work. There were no screens anywhere, but they installed some new air filtration equipment (probably just an AC unit) to try and keep any zomby customers from shitting themselves.
I live in Scotland and last week attended a meal in a very small private hotel as part of a 3 day wedding weekend – don’t ask, just don’t go… Anyway, we had to wear masks in the public areas but not in the dining room. Masks were provided when you entered the building and were worn for all of about 10 metres to get to the dining room then removed. The staff wore masks while serving. I did’t go to the toilet but masks would have had to have been worn then as getting there involved walking though a public area. It was just ludicrous but some people took it very seriously. Sadly I feel we’re in this pantomime for ever.
As others have said, it has all the hallmarks of a religious ritual.
It’s just a real pity that non-believers have to go along with it. I’ve just been to a local shop on a west coast island which has a fresh sign outside which says “No mask, no entry”. The staff person is behind a plastic screen and has a mask round her neck fo when she’s not behind the screen. There is no other shop for 17 miles…
Not legal surely?
Brilliant….I
I have carried around for 2+ years print outs of the most recent and damming empirical evidence about vaccine and mask toxicity and as soon as one of these lunatics says anything I hand them my evidence and ask for theirs… in 2 years I’ve never had anyone hand me back any evidence or even be able to cite their own. To say I have an ‘attitude’ is an understatement but hey-ho, I get to laugh last.
Clearly they like the perceived control over us and won’t give it up easily.
I drove my ex wife to an eye appointment. Neither of us wore masks. “I have sleep apnoea” she told them. ” l have cerebral function” I said.
This thing about ‘keeping us safe‘. It’s yet more utterly infantile rambling; it’s not thought out at all, and they somehow believe that all you need do is say something and it becomes reality/potent.
——–
And …
In the gov response to the petition regarding WHO Pandemic Treaty: COVID-19 has demonstrated that no-one is safe until we are all safe, ….
Just what the hell does ‘no one is safe until we are all safe’ actually mean ferchrissakes? It’s utterly nonsensical, and it infuriates me.
Do not doubt there aren’t some accounts here who take notes against you and your “radicalised” comments. One account seems fishy and a bit too jovial.
I am pleased to report that this is not my experience of the dentist. The Government needs to declare the panicdemic formally over and ban institutions from imposing local rules on the public when they lack the force of law behind them. Since the Covid crisis was largely invented in the Government communications department, surely they can now send out a message declaring the all clear?
Next scene. Knives and AR-15 assault rifles. Calmness returns.
Twats. Twats. Twats.
The early part of the story read like something out of M Python.
There are some people out there who have loved every minute of it all and don’t want to see it end – they got off exploiting their ‘emergency powers‘ to bully people around. The masks, the social distancing, the restrictions, the testing, the vaccines and vaccine passports – they have absolutely loved this stuff and they find it hard to let go and never want it to end – this is their ‘Blitz’ moment. To you and I the face covering, the hectoring of the maskless, the limit on our freedoms it was all an abomination and yet there are a bunch of people out there who resist the return to normal lives again and want a life of restrictions and absurd rules to return again because their normal lives weren’t great to begin with until covid came along. A virus with a 99+% survival rate has been the most exciting thing to ever happen to them in their boring dull lives – they were in a rut before covid came along and yearned for excitement and meaning to their lives – the battle for survival against a deadly virus – getting out early to beat the rush of the… Read more »
Right on. We need to look at psychology to explain these deep recesses of human behaviour. For anyone unfamiliar, have a look at Prof. Desmet’s work on free-floating anxiety and mass formation psychosis.
My partner’s dentist may have a psychologist advising them.
When you walk in and you are asked “do you have a mask?
My partner says “no I’m exempt”. I’m asked and I say I don’t wear masks. Receptionist clearly isn’t happy but nothing else is said.
When I’m waiting for her another patient walks in and is asked the same question. When she says no they say they sell them for 50p but on this occasion they will let her have it for free and she puts it on.
Brilliant! Well done!
This dialogue ought. as they say, to go viral.
Why not put all those jobsworths in the stocks from 6:00pm on Friday evening to 6:00pm on Monday morning every weekend for the next six months?
And make them pay for the rotten fruit to be thrown at them.
I’ve never worn a mask in my dentist, even at the height of covid restrictions when they were dressed like there’d been an outbreak of Ebola.
I went again a few weeks ago, and though they still ask for masks, a polite ‘sorry I can’t wear one’ didn’t cause any problems, and at least some of the patients waiting weren’t wearing them either.
The dentists weren’t covered in PPE this time, however they still wore masks and face shields, but that was their choice apparently – not required any more. To be honest I don’t have a problem with dentists wearing masks or shields as dentistry requires very close contact with the patient and there are other, nastier bugs you can catch such as hepatitus and AIDS which the PPE might offer some protection against.
I was in an NHS hospital yesterday (felt like the Marie celeste due to the bank holiday, but that’s another story…), and they were still requiring masks, but no fuss was made of me not wearing one.
The dental practice I go to stopped pushing masks ages ago. The dentist, associated clinical room staff and hygienist have always – pre / post covid, worn a mask, face shield, gloves, apron during treatment and cleaned the chair etc between patients – normal, acceptable practice to me. What I do take umbrage at is the additional £15 added to hygienist treatment costs ‘for PPE’ when they are not doing anything different to their previous good practice.