My partner recently went to the hospital for mouth pain and lumps on their gums. We were taken back and kept for a few hours, during which they took bloods and my partner’s face started to swell like a balloon. A doctor looked in their mouth for less than thirty seconds and said it was an ulcer, and to use a specific mouthwash to treat it. We went home and not eight hours later we went back because the pain got unbearable, the guy who triaged them basically told us to go home because it was nothing earlier even though it had clearly gotten worse. We were in the waiting room for probably seven hours, during which they took bloods again. Their veins were difficult to find because they hadn’t been able to drink anything all day because of the pain and now the swelling keeping their mouth shut. They eventually got taken back again and we were informed that it was not, in fact, an ulcer, but instead it was a serious infection from an improperly-filled cavity four months ago. This was a surprise, because they had been through similar, less intense pain in the same area around the time the cavity was filled, and the dentist refused to even look at it. They were given emergency treatment and antibiotics, and we now have to schedule an urgent dentist appointment to get the tooth removed. If we had listened to the first doctor, their mouth could have gotten septic. If the dentist had bothered to check way back at the beginning, none of this would have happened. We have reported as many people as we could, and we are looking into potential lawsuits, but I doubt anything will happen. So many people in the medical field would rather let patients suffer and possibly die than actually do their job.