Mrs Raaj Maj, a 52-year-old teacher from Pinner, Greater London, has been awarded £5,600 by her former dentist with the help of specialist dental negligence solicitors, The Dental Law Partnership. The payment was awarded after her dentist failed to perform the root canal treatment to a satisfactory clinical standard. This resulted in a perforated tooth, a chemical burn, intense pain and swelling, and the avoidable future loss of the tooth.
Mrs Maj was a patient at Imperial Dental Care, Harrow, in 2024. “In May 2024, I booked an examination with my usual dentist at Imperial Dental Care to change the colour of my silver crown, and to ask about the pain I was experiencing on the right-hand side of my mouth. A month later I was referred to Dr Falguni Mehta, a specialist at the practice, who said I needed a root canal on my lower right tooth”, Mrs Maj recalled.
“I was halfway through the procedure when I suddenly felt a really sharp shooting pain in my mouth. I’d never experienced anything like it,” Mrs Maj explained. “Dr Mehta immediately gave me four or five injections to help numb the pain, and put a cotton wool in my mouth which immediately was covered in blood. Although the injections helped subside the pain, Dr Mehta told me that she couldn’t complete the treatment. However she reassured me there was nothing to worry about as the risk of infection was low and I would be fine to go home.”
“When I went home that night, I knew something was seriously wrong as my tooth started hurting and swelling up. I felt miserable,” Mrs Maj recalled. “The pain got really intense, so a few days later I went back to see Dr Mehta who completed the root canal. She told me that there wasn’t anything majorly wrong but that the tooth was infected. She advised that I would need to go back to my original dentist at the practice to get a crown,” Mrs Maj explained. “I found it strange because she wouldn’t show me any of the X-ray images when I asked and instead Dr Mehta kept showing me the other side of my mouth, not the right side where the tooth had been damaged. It was at this point I realised she wasn’t showing me the full picture.”
“When I saw my original dentist again, they told me that during the root canal procedure Dr Mehta performed, the dental file instrument had perforated through the root of the tooth “Mrs Maj recalled. “It was clear the treatment had gone seriously wrong as I was then immediately offered a direct reimbursement for the root canal treatment.”
“I was so traumatised by the whole experience. Shortly after, I decided to visit a different dental practice entirely, who told me that Dr Mehta had failed to do the root canal procedure effectively and that my tooth had been perforated badly causing a chemical burn,” Mrs Maj explained. “They told me I’d need to repeat the root canal, and that the tooth would likely need to be extracted in future. This would cause a noticeable gap in my mouth.”
Frustrated with the experiences she had gone through, Mrs Raaj Maj contacted the Dental Law Partnership in 2024. Further analysis revealed the extent of the poor dental treatment Mrs Raaj Maj received from Dr Falguni Mehta, where she failed to perform the root canal treatment to a satisfactory clinical standard. This resulted in avoidable and intense pain and swelling, a perforation resulting in a chemical burn, and the future loss of the tooth that will require a dental implant to fill the gap.
“I’m still in a lot of pain and I haven’t managed to get the tooth fixed as I’m so traumatised by the whole experience. The pain was causing me to cry at work and I just felt that there was no duty of care,” Mrs Maj explained. “The fact that they tried to hide the X-rays from me is what shook me up the most, I couldn’t believe I wasn’t being told the truth. You place so much trust in your dentist, especially a specialist, and to see that taken advantage of was really upsetting. I now find it really intimidating to go to the dentist and I feel uncomfortable sitting in the chair.”
Tyla Westhead of the Dental Law Partnership commented: “The distress and pain our client has experienced was completely unnecessary. If the dentist involved had provided more satisfactory treatment, her problems could have been avoided.”
The Dental Law Partnership took on Mrs Raaj Maj case in 2024. The case was successfully settled in September 2025 when Mrs Raaj Maj was paid £5,600 in an out of court settlement. The dentist involved did not admit liability
