Open wide — well, it did eventually!

WORKERS at a new dental practice in Okehampton refused to be 'down in the mouth' on Monday after they found their front door had been sealed by a mystery vandal. It was the first day of opening for the Albany House dental practice, but staff were unable to open the door to patients at their buildiing in Station Road because somebody had poured sealant along the crack of the door. Dr Sarah Johnson, who owns the practice and lives above the surgery, came down to open the door from the inside but found it stuck. After all the hard work preparing for the 'grand opening' she may have been forgiven for not extracting much humour from the situation but Sarah was determined not to crack. 'I don't know who would want to do such a childish thing,' said Sarah, 'but it couldn't have been a disgruntled patient because we haven't opened yet!' Sarah was full of praise to her staff — dental nurse and practice manager Lucy Oughton, dental receptionists Sammy Moore and her cousin Tanya Moore, along with trainee dental nurse Louis Sparling — for all their help, especially over the past few weeks, to make sure the building was ready on Monday to welcome patients. A sign was put on the front door asking patients to come to the back. Much work has gone into turning the eloquent Edwardian building into a dental surgery since it was bought for the purpose in August and planning permission was granted in November. The team have worked hard to convert the building, which had been a bookmakers, into a modern, well equipped dental practice. Although it is a practice for private patients at the moment, Sarah is in talks with Mid Devon Primary Care Trust to hopefully do NHS work in the near future. It is also hoped that another dentist will be joining along with a qualified hygienist. Sarah, who worked as a dentist at the Access Centre in Exeter, said: 'We hope we can encourage like-minded dentists to join us here at Albany House. We wish to settle in and become very much part of the community here in Okehampton.' The front door was finally freed on Tuesday.