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Brexit
Original poster

My Romanian dentist...

148 replies

MrsPeterDoherty · 20/02/2017 12:39

...is leaving the UK shortly due to Brexit.

There is a shortage of NHS dentist already in my home town. It will be difficult to find a new practice with space available for my family and me.

Thanks to the Leave voters, I will have rotten teeth!

OP posts:
twofingerstoEverything · 24/02/2017 13:01

Before 23rd June I would never have thought of leaving. Things have changed massively since, and I worry where my children will have the most opportunities. Many others feel the same

I think this is a good point. In some quarters, it's almost implied that EU citizens are flouncing from the UK, or leaving because of uncertainty about their status, or because they feel less welcome. In fact, a huge number are probably leaving for more pragmatic reasons, ie. wanting to live in a place that offers good prospects and opportunities for themselves and their children, rather than in an inward-looking, divided country that seems intent on throwing itself off an economic cliff.

helpmeseethewoods · 26/02/2017 05:39

Re the German GP. Why take it so personally? This isn't the country of his birth. Why is it a problem to have to fill in some forms so he can stay here. I would expect nothing less from a country I decided to move to. And why hasn't he applied for citizenship if he's lived here for 20 years?

She didn't need to apply for Britizh citizenship, because she shared her EU citizenship with us.

She may now be applying for Permanent Residency, which by all accounts is a draconian and impossible procedure with a lot of EU citizens receiving the generic "time to make arrangements to go home" letter from the Home Office. Despite often having lived here for decades, paid tax, and often also having British partners and children. These families are now in horrible limbo.

How anyone isn't able to see how shameful this is, is beyond me.

helpmeseethewoods · 26/02/2017 05:42

(And the letter from the Home Office is wrong in any case, EU citizens are as much at home here as in their own country, until the UK actually jumps off the cliff with the likes of Le Pen and Trump waiting at the bottom leaves the EU.)

ThroughThickAndThin01 · 26/02/2017 05:47

Are letters like that now being sent out?

olliegarchy99 · 26/02/2017 06:10

Yes they may have lived here for 'n' number of years and paid tax but they have also availed themselves of the NHS, schools, child benefit and the rest. The implication from these guardian touted stories always seems to me that they have paid so much tax and this country is shameful in asking them to regularise their status - it is not a one way street.

helpmeseethewoods · 26/02/2017 07:10

Yes they are being sent out. I know this anecdotally, as well as from newspaper articles.

I think you are missing the point ollie. They don't need to regularise their status as yet, because we are still in the EU. Some of them are seeking PR because they don't know what will happen - due to May's seeming insistence that they be used as bargaining chips.

On trying to do this, many are finding it very very difficult due to the impossible hoops the Home Office puts people through.

Of course they have used the NHS, schools etc... This is their home. Now they are apparently disposable foreigners. I would feel betrayed as well.

The other point about tax is that EU migration has made a net contribution to the coffers - whatever the gutter press and others would have us believe.

helpmeseethewoods · 26/02/2017 07:13

it is not a one way street.

I don't understand this statement. They didn't need to get PR before because they are EU citizens. This didn't mean that they didn't pay tax - they did. In some cases lots of it. How is this a "one way street"?

Peregrina · 26/02/2017 07:24

Perhaps it would help you understand ollie if people from say the North East or West country were told that they had to provide proof of having lived there for a certain number of years before they were allowed to move to London. They would quite rightly say 'what are you on about? I am entitled to move where I want within the country'. Other countries do require residence permits, so it's not necessarily an outlandish idea.

RufusTheSpartacusReindeer · 26/02/2017 10:01

Thats a good explanation peragrina

Original poster
MrsPeterDoherty · 26/02/2017 11:09

My dentist and I had a 5 minute chat while waiting for the anaesthetic to take effect.
He is leaving this summer entirely due to Brexit. He knows he doesn't have to go yet.
He said the UK had a reputation for being tolerant, diverse, welcoming. A broad-minded country.
This has now changed; he no longer feels a welcome member of the community despite his job serving the public, despite paying tax, despite being integrated into the local area.
He thinks it is better to leave voluntarily with his head held high, rather than wait to be kicked out ignominiously after a couple of years of uncertainty.
I am ashamed to be British right now

OP posts:
Original poster
MrsPeterDoherty · 26/02/2017 11:11

Actually, I am ashamed to be English; the Scots can take pride in their refusal to promote xenophobia

OP posts:
Caprianna · 26/02/2017 11:28

I would also like to know what applying for recidency would mean. Does it mean you will have accesses to the NHS also if you are not earning and paying into it as a non-national?
Not all countries allow dual citizenship, my own home country being one. I live in the UK because I marries a Brit and it was practical for us to stay here due to job opportunities for him as he does not have a degree and his earning potential in my home country would therefore be very low. Why would I give up my own citizenship and perhaps not be able to return and live in my own country ever again.

We are also leaving the UK now because of Brexit. We are moving with our jobs, but the main trigger has been to provide our children a better future and that's not in the UK. I am not prepared to sit and wait for this traincrash to happens so I will leave the train now.

It does look like The house of lords is kicking up a bit at the moment and I am delighted. I think British people really have to fight for their country's future now and that means joining forces whether it's Tony Blair or Michael Heseltine. Time is running out.

twofingerstoEverything · 26/02/2017 14:24

The dual citizenship thing is a major factor when making a decision to take nationality. About 20 years ago I had a Swedish friend, married to a Turk. She wasn't allowed dual nationality, so took Turkish nationality. He died a few years later. She no longer had any right to return to Sweden and had no option but to remain in Turkey, despite her limited earning potential and despite having no family there, apart from a very elderly MIL on the other side of the country. When her own parents became frail, she was unable to return 'home' to help them. I think Sweden may have changed the law since then, but how many of us would want to give up our own nationality when we cannot know what the future holds?

WrongTrouser · 26/02/2017 15:41

Actually, I am ashamed to be English; the Scots can take pride in their refusal to promote xenophobia

I just can't get my head around that sentence Hmm

You're ashamed to be English, against xenophobia but you think it's okay to make a derogatory, generalising remark about "the English". Very confusing.

WrongTrouser · 26/02/2017 15:47

Can you clarify it for me? Is it only okay to make stereotyped derogatory comments about your own country folk but not folk from other countries?

Why is that though as obviously you don't really mean "the English", as presumably you don't consider yourself to be xenophobic? So you mean "the other English". Why is that any less offensive than someone making derogatory (and false) comments about the French say, or the Poles?

WelshMoth · 26/02/2017 15:51

Your dentist is making a substantial differences in both the care he is providing and the contributions he is paying back into the system while he's here. It's a great shame that he doesn't feel welcome.

Anon1234567890 · 26/02/2017 16:09

It is a shame he doesn't feel welcome but its all in his head, we are leaving the EU not Europe. Perhaps its time for project fear to stop spreading the hatred that is fueling this nonsense.

As for his serving the public, umm no, he was doing a job and getting well paid for it.

TheElementsSong · 26/02/2017 18:08

project fear to stop spreading the hatred that is fueling this nonsense

Right, this too, like everything else under the sun, is entirely the fault of Remainers Hmm. Gotcha.

twofingerstoEverything · 26/02/2017 18:10

It is a shame he doesn't feel welcome but its all in his head

That's where anxiety tends to reside. What a nasty comment, given the increase in racism/xenophobia and the fact that EU citizens' status in the UK is far from assured.
And the phrase 'project fear' just makes you sound like you swallowed the Daily Express/Mail.

InformalRoman · 26/02/2017 19:57

Actually, I am ashamed to be English; the Scots can take pride in their refusal to promote xenophobia

The Scots do seem more tolerant. Even to the English these days.

Kaija · 26/02/2017 20:35

"It is a shame he doesn't feel welcome but its all in his head,"

I'll tell that to all of my friends and colleagues who since June have been on the receiving end of "why don't you fuck off home" type comments for the first time in years of living here. And tell them that May's refusal to guarantee their status is also a figment of their imagination.

Peregrina · 26/02/2017 22:22

As for his serving the public, umm no, he was doing a job and getting well paid for it.

Let's hope that you are never in agony, needing root canal treatment and unable to find a dentist then, Anon1234567890. Or do manage to find a dentist but it's cough up £600 ++ for treatment or have the tooth pulled as a cheaper alternative.

Welcome to the 1930s.

mnpeasantry · 26/02/2017 22:47

Unfortunately leave voters don't care. About anyone. Not least themselves. Ask the silly people of Cornwall and Wales.

They pretended for a while they cared about the NHS but it was never really about that.

The only comfort you can take is that they will likely suffer more than you will and will only be able to blame themselves or Gove or Farage or Johnson.

specialsubject · 27/02/2017 09:12

My dental surgery has been a revolving door for five years. The British and Spanish dentists were excellent but they left. The last one (eastern European of some sort) wrecked a tooth to the point of needing urgent private treatment. Fortunately we could afford £300. So now leaving the practice.

Now on a waiting list for a different surgery, should be about six months. Still, better than north Wales a few years back when you couldn't even get on waiting lists.

It was not all unicorns before jun 23rd, and the competence of dentists does not relate to their nationality.

specialsubject · 27/02/2017 09:13

Note - I said wales, where dentistry has been in a shambles for years. Nothing to lose, maybe?