Amity Island
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
The EU is banning mercury metal-based fillings (dental amalgam) in dentistry on 1 Jan 2025. The UK and NI want to keep using them.
When the ban comes into force, it will affect the UK because it will disrupt supply chains and make dentistry more expensive.
But this particularly affects dentists in Northern Ireland because of the protocol - it won't just be illegal to import mercury fillings, but to use them at all (except in exceptional circumstances).
Dentists in Northern Ireland say they're critically unprepared to work without dental amalgam, and that patient care will be affected.
Dentists in Northern Ireland are already at crisis point and lose money carrying out most routine surgeries and fillings etc, unless they're private.
Dentists say dental amalgam is safe and has been used for a century.
"It also takes me three times as long to do a white filling than it does a silver filling," she added.
"So to introduce into the service a filling material which costs more and takes longer will break the service which is already so fragile."
When the ban comes into force, it will affect the UK because it will disrupt supply chains and make dentistry more expensive.
But this particularly affects dentists in Northern Ireland because of the protocol - it won't just be illegal to import mercury fillings, but to use them at all (except in exceptional circumstances).
Dentists in Northern Ireland say they're critically unprepared to work without dental amalgam, and that patient care will be affected.
Dentists in Northern Ireland are already at crisis point and lose money carrying out most routine surgeries and fillings etc, unless they're private.
Dentists say dental amalgam is safe and has been used for a century.
"It also takes me three times as long to do a white filling than it does a silver filling," she added.
"So to introduce into the service a filling material which costs more and takes longer will break the service which is already so fragile."
NHS: NI dentists warn against EU metal filling ban
The NI chair of the British Dental Association warns against proposed ban on dental amalgam.
www.bbc.co.uk