Disappointing experience at NUHS dental centre

I arrived at the National University Health System's (NUHS) dental centre on June 9 around 8.10am — 10 minutes after it opened — for an assessment on a tooth that had been causing me immense pain.

The Woodlands Polyclinic had four days earlier referred me to the NUHS dental centre, known as the National University Centre for Oral Health, Singapore. When I expressed concerns about walking in without an appointment, the polyclinic dentist assured me there should not be a problem.

When I arrived at the centre, I was told to go home and return either at 3pm on the same day or the next day.

The reason given was that the number of walk-in patients had been restricted because of the Covid-19 outbreak. The clinic needed a longer time to air or sanitise the room, which reduced its ability to cope with the number of walk-in patients. 

Even if I had returned later that day or the next day, a staff member at the front desk told me that there was no assurance that a dentist could attend to me. So I decided against taking up her suggestion after weighing the risk of being rejected from the clinic again. 

I can appreciate the number of people coming to see the dentist by walking in without an appointment, but it was such a disappointing experience.

If the clinic would not accept walk-ins after taking a certain number of patients, then it has to devise a procedure, such as a phone-booking system, so that nobody is left in the lurch after arriving at the centre. 

There should also be better coordination between the polyclinic and the dental centre to prevent future incidents. 

The dental centre must also be transparent, as the counter staff member had claimed the walk-in slots were full without giving any proof. Done correctly, it will save people a lot of time, money and frustration. 

I was disappointed by how the centre treated me as a senior in his 60s, especially since I travelled all the way from Woodlands to the clinic in Kent Ridge for nothing.

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