A furious former miner says he has been forced to eat a diet of prescription painkillers and soup as he can’t afford £5,400 for private dental treatment. <br /><br />David Creamer, 62, has been left in “agony” for more than seven months while waiting for NHS treatment to fix a set of four crowns that snapped off his top jaw.<br /><br />But despite visiting emergency dental clinics, his GP and contacting numerous surgeries, he still hasn't found a practice that will take him on.<br /><br />David joked how he now wished he'd ‘trained as a dentist’ after recently being given the eye-watering quote for treatment at a private clinic.<br /><br />And he blames the Conservative government for ‘destroying’ the crucial health service and leaving him in constant pain.<br /><br />The fed-up former pitman said: “I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel.<br /><br />“I’m absolutely shocked – a country like this. I hear on the news we’re one of the top six richest countries in the world. <br /><br />“Well, we might be if you’ve got a very, very large bank account and you vote Conservative, that appears to be the gist of things. <br /><br />“I never used to have a problem before with dentists. I never had a problem all my life until this happened.<br /><br />“It’s bad enough getting a doctor’s appointment around here – it takes two weeks to get that. As for dentists, I think it’s a dying art. <br /><br />"It's fine if you’ve got money, if you haven’t, you just won’t see one. It’s definitely a two-tier system. You’re on your own.”<br /><br />David, who worked for 17 years at Silverwood Colliery, near Ravenfield, South Yorks., said his set of crowns had snapped off his top jaw in Blackpool in June last year.<br /><br />He had just tucked into a sandwich while on holiday in the seaside destination when he felt a sharp pain in his gums as the four enamel tooth coverings came away.<br /><br />David had headed to an emergency dentist for vulnerable residents in Blackpool but said that the centre was “chock-a-block full of people” and he couldn’t be seen.<br /><br />He visited his GP when he returned to his home town of Rotherham, South Yorks.<br /><br />And he was then prescribed with high strength Co-codamol painkillers, which he now takes every four hours, as well as Naproxen to reduce his swelling.<br /><br />David also went to a local emergency dentist, who told him he’d need some roots taken out and several of his teeth had shattered - but said they couldn't treat him.<br /><br />And seven months later, he is still struggling to find an NHS practitioner who will perform the much-needed surgery to put him out of his misery.<br /><br />He said: “Here we are, end of January nearly, and I’m still here, on these tablets every day, in constant pain. <br /><br />“I’m living on soup and rice puddings as that’s all I can eat. I can’t chew anything.<br /><br />“If the pain would go away, I don’t mind walking around looking like a hobbit with no teeth. But it’s the pain – if somebody can just do something about it."<br /><br />He added: “People are pulling their own teeth out with plyers or whatever.
