The family of an 81-year-old man who took his own life after suffering from the effects of botched dental surgery say they have “lost faith in the system”. Clive Worthington, from Harlow, Essex, travelled to Hungary for dental implants in 2008, but the follow-up procedures from the same dentist in the UK over the next seven years were unsuccessful. In 2017, Dr Eszter Gömbös was found at fault by the General Dental Council (GDC), with Mr Worthington awarded £117,378 in damages and legal costs, but his insurer refused to pay, citing “discretionary indemnity”. Last week, an inquest concluded Mr Worthington’s death in 2022 was a suicide. The government has since addressed the “loophole” that meant he missed out on compensation.
Speaking to the BBC, Mr Worthington’s daughter said the loopholes around dental insurance, especially discretionary indemnity, were “just madness”. She added that she had “completely lost faith in the system,” describing it as “completely nonsensical, completely outdated”. The compensation was won by solicitor Paul Judkins, who referred to discretionary indemnity as a loophole and said: “Nowhere in the Dentists Act 1984 does the word discretion come up”.
Mr Worthington’s daughter said she will continue to fight for justice for her father, adding: “I just don’t want my dad to have died in vain because of this. I will keep asking the questions and I’ll keep fighting to try and get things changed.” The Department of Health and Social Care has said it has “pre-existing concerns about discretionary indemnity”. The government said it was continuing to look into the issue of clinical negligence as part of the Paterson inquiry implementation update.
The GDC said that patients “must be able to seek compensation in the rare event that something goes wrong in their dental care,” but that it was “deeply frustrating that weaknesses in the current legislation caused the system to fail in this instance”. Perfect Profiles, Dr Gömbös’ former employer, said it ceased trading in 2022, while the DDU declined to comment further on individual cases. Mr Worthington, who worked as a wood machinist, had three children and five grandchildren
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