I am a retired merchant marine officer, ship master, and in need for dentures already for some six years and I have no funds for seeing a dentist. I have simply been very unlucky in life.
I retired in late 2014 and two years before retirement I received a fair size lump sum as retirement from another job I held and I invested it with a business person I had already known for some 20 years and was promised a return of some two percent per month. In the first quarter of 2015 I asked for the first withdrawal and it worked without remarks and so did also the second withdrawal. But when I asked for the third monthly withdrawal everything came to a grinding halt. This person now came up with hollow explanations that he had been accused of money laundering, tax evasion and unauthorized money transfers bypassing the official channels. Result as per him was that all his funds were frozen. I have however my doubts after checking him out by means of a friend having access to various registers not normally open to the public.
I managed to survive by selling off two properties I had, selling them quickly and well below market price and I also had another small pension from another employer that ran out after some time.
In 2018 I had to sell the house of my dreams that I had built before retiring, again well below market price and bought another very modest house located what would be best described as almost a shanty. Here I need to explain that I lived in a country in South America and lived there for 40 years.
In early 2020 my situation became untenable and I had to sell the very modest house I had and again for a price well below market value. Next was to buy a one way air ticket back to the country of my citizenship which is a Nordic country and abandon all I had including 40-plus years of memories from my life. Another thing that was taken away from me was that when I was a well-paid merchant marine officer I had the habit of helping out poor friends in the South American country where I lived.
Well, I came back to my country in a fashion not very different from a war refugee, only advantage was my language and my passport. I quickly found out that the generosity and the empathy that existed with government social assistance when I moved out in 1980 had next to evaporated away. I arrived at one of the larger cities in my birth country and managed to get a bed at a shelter for homeless people. I registered myself as back in my birth country and managed to get a very meager government pension and some other small benefits. To be considered as not being in the risk for material poverty the amount monthly is supposed to be 60 percent of the median income in this country of mine and this is as per a government institution. I am well below the government set criteria for risk of poverty.
An apartment to rent in the large city where I arrived was impossible, the waiting time for social housing of the city council was something in the range of ten years and rents were also impossible for me. Solution was look for a place to live at a sparsely populated corner of the country with dwellings available. I found an apartment owned by the city council some distance away from center from this small city and managed to convince the city council landlord to let me rent it after showing them that my meager pension would be enough to cover the rent and utility. The apartment is kind of grim and so is also the entire place where I live.
My dental problem now. Ever since disaster struck my life in 2015 I have not seen a dentist and result is that I have lost next to all my teeth. Result is that any food I eat has to be very soft not needing any chewing. Eating an apple I can forget about as well as biting a bread bun. Smiling I haven’t done for years. My speech is also difficult to understand sometimes as it is difficult to pronounce the dental consonants without front teeth. I could go on with much more, but I think this is enough.
Dental care is free for adolescents, but once one becomes an adult it is considered a “semi cosmetic” treatment and only some very rudimentary government assistance is available. When I contacted the city council office of social assistance I was informed that they need a quotation from a dentist to consider me. Just looking at my mouth would have been enough for any sensible person, but apparently not for social assistance office. I was also informed that an evaluation from a dentist I would have to pay for myself, I can’t even afford the bus fare to the dentist office that is located at a place outside my city. They even suggested that I save up from my meager pension to see a dentist. How when I barely make it through the month? So what do I do? if I take an SMS loan to pay for the dentist evaluation and then the social assistance says no?
I would of course like to have my life back to what it was before the disaster that struck me and move back to the South American country I enjoyed so much over the years. But just to get my teeth back would be a major step forward in what rests of my life.
If anyone wish to talk to me I am on Telegram @Artist314
https://paypal.me/HansMariner?country.x=SE&locale.x=en_US