Sufferers lend support

Almost a thousand people have signed an e-petition calling for mouth cancer sufferers to be exempt from dental charges.

As it stands, people with mouth cancer have no guarantee to receive restorative treatment paid for by the NHS. Restorative surgery means many sufferers face a poor quality of life, and research suggests a large percentage of long-term survivors have to cope with persistent poor oral health, eating problems and even depression.

Mouth cancer campaigners are also concerned that the lack of free examinations for mouth cancer from NHS dentists is hindering improvements in mouth cancer survival rates. Many NHS patients have to pay for the privilege of having a mouth cancer check – a condition which kills more than cervical cancer and testicular cancer combined each year.

Ahead of Mouth Cancer Action Month, organisers the British Dental Health Foundation have received a number of messages from current mouth cancer sufferers lending their support to the e-petition. Mouth cancer sufferer Cindy Worthington, 50 from Guernsey, said: “I feel strongly about it as I know how regular visits to the hygienist and dentist helped me get an early diagnosis and therefore escape with no physical impairment or disfigurement as a consequence of mouth cancer. As a woman it strikes me as bizarre that if I still lived in the UK the NHS would pay for a boob job following breast cancer but not for replacement teeth!”