Dental Tourism
The bottom line is that if people you know have had treatment abroad and it has been a success, then that's great!
The difficulty is that we are seeing more and more people who have returned to Dublin with dentistry that is not up to the standard that we provide here. And if the work does go wrong then it can lead to huge complications that can cost far more to rectify.
A recent newspaper article exposed that consultants in the Dublin Dental Hospital, reported that 21 people required corrective dental surgery in one year having received dental treatment abroad, with 16 patients requiring extensive re-treatment at a specialist level. Unfortunately this is only the tip of the ice-berg. We and our colleagues in Dublin are seeing more and more patients with problems requiring replacement of some or all of their dental work completed outside the state.
Condensing a large amount of complex dental treatment into a very short time frame is inherently risky. There must be sufficient time for planning and staging treatment, so that all possible complications can be dealt with. If completing extensive treatment in a few days was best practice then dentists would be doing it here too.
Always remember that a crown or veneer can be made of many different materials and of differing qualities. Here in the Republic of Ireland dentists can afford to use the best materials and laboratories available in the world. From what we have seen of dentistry done in Northern Ireland, Eastern Europe and elsewhere those options are unfortunately not always available. Anything can be done cheaply, but this will obviously not always give you the results you want or deserve.
