Roadside professionals : Quack sidewalk dentists putting lives at risk

Equipment in hand, sat under the shade of trees on Rawalpindi’s sidewalks, beckoning potential clients towards them, roadside barbers and dentists, who are devoid of any sense of hygiene and spread diseases, are a common sight in the city.

Despite a crackdown by the city’s administration, such barbers and dentists avoid brush ups with the law by simply relocating to a different sidewalk with their equipment in tow. While many of the city’s residents are aware of the health hazards that these pretend professionals pose it does little to deter their clientele which is composed of daily-wage workers.

Khalid Abbasi, one such dentist without any medical degree, sits in the Fawara Chowk area of the bustling Raja Bazaar, and while talking to The Express Tribune termed his occupation as his family business.

“My grandfather and father also used to work in the areas of Raja Bazaar, Station Road, Pohri Bridge. My grandfather who was a male nurse in a government hospital had done a dental course and upon his retirement started offering cheap dental treatment on these sidewalks; my father learned from him and I learned from my father,” he narrated.

Abbasi, rejecting all claims of the lack of hygiene, was of the view that not only was his treatment cheap but it was the best in town. “I have only complete matriculation but you can compare my work with any professional dentist and mine will be better,” he challenged, “the only difference is that I charge Rs 1,000 to 2,000 for a tooth replacement whereas clinics charge between Rs 20,000 to 50,000.”

Similarly, Farast Bhatti, another quack dentist, who sits on the historic Pohrian Wallan bridge, a relic of the British Raj, said that he has been treating teeth for 20 years. “We have been chased away by the police several times but this is the only work we know and we do a good job,” he informed. Bhatti, when asked about his substandard equipment as the cause for spreading diseases, said that he was just saving lives by offering cheap dental cleaning, replacing teeth, and removing tooth decay.

Sat under a tree near the Shah Ni Taliyan graveyard, Idrees Khan, a barber, also rejected claims of spreading diseases. “My tools do not spread disease. There are already HIV patients in the country, our razors do not have anything to do with them,” an irate Khan said. He informed The Express Tribune, that his father used to sit under the same tree and make an honest living.

“I do not have thousands of rupees to rent a shop. My daily wage is between Rs 1,500 to 2,000 and on rainy days I barely make Rs 300 to 500,” he lamented. Despite quack dentists and barbers claiming they were safe, Dr Muhammad Inayat, who is the Deputy Medical Superintendent at Benazir Bhutto General Hospital, said that the hospital has to bear the burden of mistakes done by quacks and amateur roadside barbers.

“Not only do they spread disease with their unsanitary equipment, the hospital regularly gets patients with botched dental treatments and infected razor cuts. So these claims of being professional are laughable,” Inayat remarked. Dr Faiza Kanwal, Chief Executive Officer of the District Health Authority, Rawalpindi, when inquired about the spread of disease through these pretend professionals, conceded that they just moved shop to a new area after being fined.

“We have a zero tolerance policy against them as they put lives at risk and act routinely but they keep on moving from bazaar to bazaar unbothered about the fines,” Kanwal told The Express Tribune.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 21^st, 2022.