Ukrainian refugee mother who couldn’t find an NHS dentist pays £254 to travel nearly 2,000 miles back to war-torn homeland for root canal treatment

A Ukrainian refugee traveled almost 2,000 miles by plane, bus and train for dental treatment in her hometown – because she could not access NHS dental care or pay for private treatment.

Natalia Nehreba, 36, said she was “shocked” to be told emergency root canal treatment would cost £800 in Wiltshire, where she has lived since the Russian invasion of her home country.

Instead, he flew from Bristol to Poznan in Poland on a £30 return economy plane ticket, before catching a bus from Poznan to the Ukrainian city of Lviv, 50 miles inland from the border.

The trip, which cost £30 each way, followed a bargain £7, 13-hour rail journey through Ukraine to Dnipro. The city is just 62 miles from the front line and was on the receiving end of a Russian bombardment in December.

Mrs Nehreba said she had been forced to make the arduous journey with her daughter Agnia, three, because she was in “severe” pain but “couldn’t find” an NHS dentist.

Natalia Nehreba, 36, (pictured with Agnia) said she was “shocked” to be told emergency root canal treatment would cost £800 in Wiltshire, where she has lived since the Russian invasion of her home country.

“It was really terrible because I was taking paracetamol and ibuprofen every day,” she added. “(But) my pain didn’t go away.

Dnipro is very dangerous and I was very worried when I went (back) but my pain was very strong. I couldn’t stay here.’

A TV journalist back home, Ms Nehreba and her daughter were initially taken in by a sponsor in Chippenham after fleeing Ukraine. They now live in a rented house in Corsham, but Mrs Nehreba has struggled to find work to fit around her daughter’s nursery school hours in the UK, meaning she has been unable to afford to pay privately for treatment.

Friend Liz Taylor, 67, who runs the local Bybrook Homes for Ukraine initiative to help Ukrainians in need, paid £60 for Mrs Nehreba to have a visit to her private dentist, where they were told the troublesome tooth could be extracted for £300 or successfully treated for £800.

Mrs Taylor said: “Natalia sat up in shock when she heard the cost. He then said “I will have to fly home to Ukraine for treatment.”

“She didn’t want to lose her tooth, but she couldn’t afford the cost of the treatment privately and she didn’t want to take money from anyone else to pay for it.”

Mrs Taylor, from Chippenham, Wiltshire, said the incident highlighted the “sad state of NHS dentistry” and said Mrs Nehreba was not the only Ukrainian in the area who felt compelled to return home for dental treatment.

“Either we had to pay ourselves to get treatment, or they went back to Ukraine – to our horror – and to some of the really dangerous parts of Ukraine in the east, near the Russian border, because of a toothache,” he said.

Mrs Nehreba, whose TV editor husband Evgeny, 53, remains in Ukraine, made the long and potentially dangerous journey home last July with their daughter.

Mrs Nehreba said she had been forced to make the arduous journey with her daughter Agnia, three, (pictured together) because she was in “severe” pain but “couldn’t find” an NHS dentist

Kateryna Lagun, Ms Nehreba’s dentist in Dnipro, said she had treated several Ukrainians who had traveled from the UK. Lagun is pictured above, working alongside her father as the pair provide care to an unnamed patient

She ended up paying around £150 for a root canal procedure and an implant with her regular dentist in Dnipro. This meant he spent £254 including travel – a saving of £556 on the cost of private treatment if he had stayed in the UK.

Ms Nehreba added: “Treatment in Ukraine is very cheap for an Englishman, but for a Ukrainian it is not (considered) cheap.

“But in England I waited a long time – I couldn’t find an NHS dentist.

“If I have a new problem with my tooth, I will fly to Ukraine to have it fixed again.”

The Ukrainian air force said it had “never seen so many sites targeted at once” after Russia launched 158 drones and missiles at Dnipro in December. A shopping mall, maternity hospital and apartments were hit by the bombing.

Kateryna Lagun, Ms Nehreba’s dentist in Dnipro, said she had treated several Ukrainians who had traveled from the UK.

“We have a lot of people coming from outside Ukraine to get their treatment,” he said.

“Dnipro is quite dangerous because we have many airstrikes at night and up to 15 airstrike warnings a day.

“I guess they don’t have many options in the UK. I heard you are dealing with this situation with NHS dentistry and even UK citizens can’t get proper treatment.’

Ms Nehreba (pictured with her daughter) ended up paying around £150 for a root canal procedure and an implant with her regular dentist in Dnipro. This meant she spent £254 including travel – a saving of £556 on the cost of private treatment if she had stayed in the UK

A spokesman for Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Integrated Care Board said it would not comment on individual cases but had commissioned “additional urgent dental care appointments”, accessed by calling NHS111, from September 2021.

A spokesman said: “There are 390 appointments each week across the South West, with 86 emergency dental appointments in Wiltshire each week.”

The council said there were also 750 stabilization appointments across the South West, which involved people who had a serious but not urgent dental problem.

He said in this case Ms Nehreba may qualify for an “urgent dental appointment or stabilization appointment” and urged her to contact the board to discuss her treatment.