A mother-of-three has received an £8,500 settlement from her former dental practice after a tooth extraction caused her to lose “buckets of blood”, fractured her jaw and left her in intensive care. Saira Malik, 54, a civil servant who lives in Surbiton, south-west London, was a long-standing patient of a local dental practice, which cannot be named for legal reasons, but after experiencing toothache she was referred to a different practice and underwent the extraction of an upper right molar in March 2019.
Despite the extraction on the upper right side, the “throbbing, stabbing” pain persisted in her upper mouth and, when she returned to the local practice in August 2019, she was advised that her upper left molar would also need to be extracted. Saira said there was difficulty during the extraction in September 2019, leading to “pulling and shoving”, which caused her to suffer a haemorrhage and pass out.
She woke up in hospital in the intensive care unit, later finding out her upper jaw had fractured during the extraction and a large chunk of bone was pulled out with the tooth, meaning she could only consume liquids through a straw for months afterwards. Specialist dental negligence solicitors the Dental Law Partnership took on Saira’s case in 2019, and it was successfully settled in May 2024 when she was paid £8,500 in an out-of-court settlement – although the dental practice owners who paid it did not admit liability.
In a statement, the practice said it does “not agree with the facts as conveyed by the Dental Law Partnership” but it takes “pride in providing the highest standards of treatment and care to all (its) patients”. Describing the “traumatising” second extraction, Saira told PA Real Life: “All you could see was just blood and blood and blood… it was continuous buckets of blood, gushing through.
“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. 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 was a patient of a local dental practice from 2009, seeing various dentists over 10 years. In 2019 she said she visited the practice in 2016 multiple times because of tooth pain in her upper mouth but was told there was no decay present.
However, with the pain becoming “unbearable”, she said she returned to the practice in 2018 and was told her upper right tooth was severely decayed and could not be saved, leading to a referral for an extraction. I was frustrated because you go to these dental experts thinking, they know what to do and what’s happening,” she said.
“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 said the severe pain led her to book an emergency appointment at a different dental practice in March 2019, to get the upper right molar extracted, and it all went “downhill” from there. In August 2019, she said she visited the original dental practice again after she noticed a breakage in her upper left tooth and she was advised that another extraction was needed because of decay.
She said she was given Valium at the practice to calm her nerves beforehand, but during the extraction in September 2019, there was a “click” noise and she then experienced heavy bleeding through 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 said.
Saira said there were “buckets of blood” as she had suffered a haemorrhage – an acute loss of blood from a damaged blood vessel – and she passed out, causing her to be taken to hospital by ambulance. She said she woke up in intensive care, feeling shocked and confused, and she remained in hospital for six days, where she learned a large chunk of bone had been removed with the tooth during the extraction.
She said she was given morphine and underwent surgery in hospital to remove the bone and extract the tooth under general anaesthetic, and she had reconstruction surgery on her jaw. “All I remember was, I was in the dentist chair, and after that, I was waking up from being unconscious and I needed surgery,” Saira said.
Saira said she could not eat properly for months and had to consume liquids through a straw as she could only open her jaw “by a few millimetres”.
She said she has suffered panic attacks and still feels “traumatised” five years later. Feeling “disheartened” and “disturbed” about the treatment she had received, she said she contacted the Dental Law Partnership in 2019.
“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 said. “The dentist could have avoided the situation and I hope lessons have been learned.”
Saira’s case was successfully settled in May 2024 when she was paid £8,500 in an out-of-court settlement. She said she was able to use some of this money to pay for a family trip to Egypt in November 2024 to celebrate her grandson’s first birthday and make “happy” memories.
Saira is now encouraging others to seek a second opinion if they are unsure of the advice and treatment they are receiving, and to trust their gut instinct. “Don’t be afraid to question the professionals and take a second opinion if you need to be 100% sure,” she said.
“I feel that by receiving the settlement, it shows that something has been done and I wasn’t just forgotten about.”
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/dental-negligence-claims/do-i-have-a-dental-negligence-claim.