French health care is wonderful, but getting a dental appointment seems to take forever. A nearby dentist runs an emergency service on one day per week, first come, first served. My wife, who needs to take extra care of her teeth because of a heart condition and the danger of infection, arrived at this dentist this morning at 7-00 am with bad tooth ache. There were already 12 people in the stuffy, uncomfortable waiting room. She stayed long enough to observe that the through-put rate was about 2 patients per hour.
When she asked if the others would sit there all day without food or drink, they seemed to be amused that a foreigner should find this a surprise. C'est normal!
Is it normal? Does anyone know of a dentist who will accept short RDVs for more urgent cases (as opposed to check-ups). Is the problem a chronic shortage of dentists?
