Warning. Do your homework please. Don’t end up like me.

Everyone is giving a good review on the professionalism. And they are right. The support staff are good. But if you want to be heard and get a personalised treatment plan-this is not the place for you. At no point, even at the initial consultation do they ask you what you actually want. It’s a one size fits all smile that is prescribed out for you and that you get. If you want to voice your opinion on what you want, you will have to book an additional special appointment and pay extra for it. I’m disappointed at my treatment so far because I’m not getting what I actually approached this practice for-and no one cares to find out. It’s very strange. The first thing any medical field practice asks is why YOU are there. What is troubling YOU. How can we help you/ what don’t you like about your teeth/ what dont you like/ what would you like us to change etc etc etc. Any variety of question where they ascertain why you have approached the practice.

>R20 000.00 is a lot to pay to get the smile someone else wants for you …

The conveyer belt begins with the consultation. Pictures are taken of your mouth and teeth. You are rushed into another room where a dentist/orthodontis? sees the pictures and comments on them and tells you what emails you will receive in a week or so detailing your treatment plan and how much it will cost. This is the first experience of how rushed things are. Not once are you asked what you like and what you would like to keep of your existing teeth and smile and what you would like to change. At this point you assume that at some point after they have given you their treatment plan that you will discuss what you want out of the experience. Surely you will be asked what YOU want.

Next you come for brace fitting. A nice video is shown then onto the conveyer belt where braces are fitted. You’re alittle perplexed that you are getting these fitted but you still haven’t had a real consultation-a patient to doctor discussion where expectations are discussed, your wants are discussed and treatment goals are established with your input. You haven’t even met your treating doctor!

The assistants fits your braces. Dr Hugo only comes to check their work. While you are laying under the dentist chair lights with your mouth ajar. Dr Hugo with no greeting or acknowledgment of your existence- no expected meeting and discussion about what you have come for- makes some comments to the assistant and leaves. No exaggeration before you have even thought ‘is this my doctor? looks like him’ he is gone. Not one word exchanged. No patient to doctor consultation At All!

Second appointment. Again pushed in and worked on at lightening speed. The Dr Hugo comes with a drill! To shave your teeth! You have no idea this was going to happen. You are taken completely off guard. Told we have to shave this and that tooth with no explanations why, whether there are other options to this, whether it’s even necessary. You are simply not worthy of having anything that will be done to you being discussed with you. The one to whom it is being done! It seems they think they know better anyway and you are just an empty vault with teeth to be tinkered on ,like a car at the mechanics.

And so on it goes. You might as well be a mannikin instead of a thinking, feeling patient. I’ve never experienced such a thing, even at overwhelmed government hospitals, they will ask ‘how can I help you’ ‘what is giving you problems’. They look you in the eye and talk to you and discuss the treatment options, their pros and cons and other alternatives; you and your practitioner will come to a healthy common understanding and agreement. Not here. How things happen here cannot be right…

Since my complaint they have said they will review their new pt policies. I really hope they will do this.