Civil servant Saira Malik, 54, has been left “traumatised” after a tooth extraction saw her lose “buckets of blood” and rushed to intensive care where she spent six days
A mum-of-three has been awarded a whopping £8,500 in compensation from her former dentist after a tooth extraction went horribly wrong.
Saira Malik, 54, a civil servant from Surbiton, south-west London, suffered a fractured jaw and lost “buckets of blood” following the procedure at a local dental practice. The ordeal left her in intensive care and she was only able to consume liquids through a straw for months afterwards. Despite the traumatic experience, the dental practice owners who paid the settlement did not admit liability.
The practice has issued a statement disagreeing with the portrayal of events by the Dental Law Partnership, asserting their commitment to “pride in providing the highest standards of treatment and care to all (its) patients”. Saira recounted her ordeal, describing the extraction as “traumatising”.
“All you could see was just blood and blood and blood… it was continuous buckets of blood, gushing through,” she said. “When I woke up in hospital, I was in the intensive care unit. I was on machines to stop the bleeding and I was told my jaw was fractured.”
Saira added: “I’m still traumatised, I still haven’t been able to walk into a dentist since then – and that is a worry because I know I’ll need to. Now I just don’t know where to go and who to trust.” Saira had been visiting the local dental practice since 2009 and saw various dentists over a decade.
In 2016, despite multiple visits for tooth pain, she was informed there was no decay. Yet, by 2018, the pain became “unbearable” and she was finally told her upper right tooth was severely decayed and needed to be extracted.
Reflecting on the situation, Saira said: “I was frustrated because you go to these dental experts thinking, they know what to do and what’s happening. You’re left to it and then all of a sudden you go and see the expert and they say, ‘Oh, by the way, it’s too late, we’ll have to get rid of it (the tooth)’.”
Saira booked an emergency dental appointment at a different practice in March 2019 due to severe pain. She had her upper right molar extracted and things went “downhill” from there. In August 2019, she returned to the original dentist after noticing a break in her upper left tooth. She was told another extraction was needed due to decay.
Saira was given Valium to ease her nerves before the procedure in September 2019. However, during the extraction, she heard a “click” noise followed by heavy bleeding from her mouth and nose.
“While they were doing the extraction, they were pulling and shoving and it wasn’t coming out, and then eventually I heard a ‘click’ noise and it was just bleeding thoroughly,” she explained. Saira described “buckets of blood” as she suffered a haemorrhage and passed out, leading to her being rushed to hospital.
She woke up in intensive care, shocked and confused, and stayed in hospital for six days. There, she discovered a large chunk of bone had been removed with the tooth during the extraction. Saira was given morphine and underwent surgery to remove the bone and extract the tooth under general anaesthetic. She also had reconstruction surgery on her jaw.
Saira has opened up about her dental nightmare that left her unconscious, requiring surgery and unable to eat properly for months. She recounted the harrowing experience of consuming liquids through a straw due to only being able to open her jaw “by a few millimetres”.
The trauma led to panic attacks and a lasting sense of being “traumatised” five years on. Disheartened by the ordeal, Saira turned to the Dental Law Partnership in 2019, determined to ensure no one else suffers as she did: “I don’t want anybody else to go through the situation I went through. It has been several years and I’m still traumatised,” she shared.
Her perseverance paid off when she received an £8,500 settlement in May 2024, which she used to create “happy” memories on a family trip to Egypt for her grandson’s first birthday. Now, Saira is advocating for patient vigilance, urging others to get a second opinion and trust their instincts. “Don’t be afraid to question the professionals and take a second opinion if you need to be 100 percent sure,” she advised.
The settlement was a form of validation for Saira. “I feel that by receiving the settlement, it shows that something has been done and I wasn’t just forgotten about,” she said.
In a statement, the practice said: “We would like to make it clear that we do not agree with the facts as conveyed by the Dental Law Partnership, but we cannot provide details of this patient’s treatment and management because of our professional duty to protect the confidentiality of our patients.
“This claim was resolved by way of an out-of-court settlement, with no admission of liability on our part. We take pride in providing the highest standards of treatment and care to all our patients.”
For more information about the Dental Law Partnership and its new tool, which helps people identify whether they may have a valid dental negligence claim, visit: dentallaw.co.uk