How tsunami changed dental chief's outlook

Published on Monday 27 July 2009 20:39

AS A forensic dentist working for the Scottish police, John Drummond has seen some terrible sights.

But nothing had prepared him for the aftermath of the Asian tsunami, in which thousands of people died when a huge tidal wave swept through the fishing villages and holiday resorts of South-East Asia.

Drummond was one of an international team of dentists who travelled to Phuket to help identify thousands of badly decomposed bodies. The senior lecturer from Dundee, just appointed president of the British Dental Association, said the experience changed him for ever: "There were some really tragic stories. You would have to be a very hard person not to be affected."

Although at the time much was made in the media of the notion that DNA sampling was going to be used to identify the thousands of people who died, the work of the dental team proved to be the crucial factor in making sure grieving relatives from other parts of the world were able to take the bodies of their loved ones home.

"Of the 5,000 people in Phuket, 70 per cent were identified by dentists," Drummond explains. "We thought that DNA would be the thing but there is a problem getting DNA from bodies that are decomposed. Many bodies had been buried by the Thai authorities and had to be dug up again. They were trying to do the right thing – they didn't realise people would want the bodies of relatives to be repatriated."

It was a big international effort involving 100 dentists from all over the world. A central team collated dental records of people believed to be missing and photographs and X-rays were taken of each of the bodies. After computer programmes had been used to find a shortlist of likely matches, remains had to be physically checked to make sure the identification was correct.

Drummond was already used to seeing burned, drowned and decomposed bodies. As a forensic dentist working on a voluntary basis for the Scottish police force, he would be called in to identify a body whenever it was too damaged for next of kin to see.

"My worst forensic case was a house fire where two children had died and they had clutched together and their charred bodies were entwined. In the tsunami a lot of children were killed – I'd never seen so many small bodies. In one case mum and dad had decided to stay in bed and their three children were at the play club on the beach. Seeing those three little bodies really affected me."

The sheer scale of the disaster was the other thing which made an impact on Drummond: "I remember one day we had a day off and went to a little island with lots of little stalls. We sat there and someone told us that everyone who had been on that island had been wiped out. Everyone had been washed into the sea. It was quite a surreal experience, sitting there."

Being involved in the aftermath of one of the greatest disasters of modern times has given Drummond a new appreciation of the simple things in life. He enjoys teaching students, seeing patients and, in his time off, quiet pursuits in the Fife countryside.

He is looking forward to travelling the country representing the British Dental Association during his year as president. Though this is largely an honorary role, it does involve speaking on behalf of the dental profession at a time when free and NHS dentistry is under threat.

"The BDA has quite an odd role – apart from being a professional body it has educational purposes as well and negotiates with the government on behalf of the industry, particularly within the NHS," he says.

Drummond is looking forward to touring the universities, meeting the next generation of dentists and representing the BDA at home and abroad. He feels this is a crucial time for dentistry.

"The really big issue at the moment is whether the NHS is viable for dentistry. I think the Scottish Government is trying quite hard to retain NHS dentistry but in England there is a different state of affairs.

"Quite significant numbers of people can't afford to see a dentist privately. Some people who might in the past have had regular check-ups are not spending their money on dentistry. There is no doubt that dental health is not improving."

As an academic one of John Drummond's specialities is dental care for the elderly.

"We are seeing older people who have all their teeth into their seventies, eighties and even nineties. That is one of the things which will be at risk if we don't work out how to pay for dental care. We don't want to go back to a situation where everybody past a certain age is edentulous – without teeth.

We now have dental implants to replace lost teeth but these are not available on the NHS. They are only really available in the private sector, so the vast majority of the population have no access to that treatment.

"It is true of all medicine. Technology has increased the range of things we can do to improve people's health but the problem is that many of these solutions are expensive."

There is no doubt these are challenging times for dentistry and for the NHS but ever since the tsunami Drummond's outlook has changed. "After the tsunami I felt really differently about life. It makes you realise how fragile it is – and that what you have is very precious and can suddenly be taken away."