This Monday opens before the Marseille Criminal Court the trial of Doctor Lionel Guedj and his father, both accused of intentional violence resulting in mutilation or permanent disability, but also fraud and forgery and use of forgery.
Dentists are suspected of having invented pathologies with a patient population often without financial means, whom they have treated in sequence in defiance of the precautions that such acts require.
On the benches of the civil parties, more than 400 former patients, including Noël Kouici, who recounts his ordeal at
20 Minutes.
He is one of the 322 victims of doctor Lionel Guedj to have filed a civil action on Monday, in one of the most anticipated trials of the year.
For years, Noël Kouici has lived without teeth, or almost, and with unbearable pain.
The 50-year-old was a patient of this dental surgeon from the northern districts of Marseille, accused of having invented pathologies with a patient base often without financial means, treated in a chain in defiance of the precautions that such acts require.
On the eve of the opening of the titanic trial of the dentist, and his father, an employee of his dental office, before the criminal court of Marseille, Noël Kouici confides in
20 Minutes
on his daily life, his expectations and his difficulties.
How did you cross paths with doctor Lionel Guedj?
I lived in Consolat [in the northern districts of Marseille].
My usual dentist was very efficient but very long.
There was a two hour gap between the appointment time and the appointment.
And the situation was getting so serious.
I had some loose teeth.
I had a temporary appliance on the bottom, for the two front teeth.
I had a few cavities.
I come from a large family with small means.
I think even the toothpaste was luxury.
So the teeth, unfortunately, it started when I was young.
Colleagues in my neighborhood recommended Doctor Guedj to me.
You had appointments right away at unbelievable hours.
He picked me up very early at 7am.
In half an hour I was out.
And I was not the first!
I think it started at 7am, until finishing late at night.
How was the first date?
He promised me the dream at an unbeatable price.
He said to me: “I'm giving you all your white teeth, with a dazzling smile.
For the money, the price, don't worry about it.
And then we started the work.
The works?
Well yeah.
Because it was work.
He butchered me.
At first it was fine.
There was just one moment when it was problematic: it was when he drilled my front teeth directly without putting me to sleep.
He sent the product to kill the nerve directly to the teeth.
It was a Friday, in 2009. I will always remember it.
I found myself on weekends going to the Feria de Nîmes, where I couldn't even bite a donut.
I couldn't open my mouth anymore.
I returned to the office on Monday in a hurry, because the pain was abominable.
Afterwards, we are caught in the gears.
Then came the moment when he cut my teeth.
There, I understood that it was the end, that he had killed all my teeth, even those which I still had healthy.
It went very very quickly.
Within a month it was over.
I went there almost two or three times a week.
There were days when he slaughtered me, and when I left there, it was not worth it.
I was going straight home.
And after ?
At first it was okay.
I had my teeth.
It started with a few little pieces of enamel that broke off.
And then it was madness.
A year and a half later, I had abscesses that came out in the gums, to understand nothing.
I was told that I would never have toothache again.
And it coincided with the revelation of the affair in the newspaper.
And behind, it was over.
Each time I saw a dentist, I said that I was a former patient of Doctor Guedj, and they answered me: “I don't touch.
I'm sorry but the story is too serious.
I can not afford.
So because the dentists wouldn't see me anymore, you know, the abscesses, I drilled them myself.
Are there repercussions today, ten years later, in your daily life?
It's a lot of suffering.
I still suffer the consequences.
I can demonstrate it to you.
Look.
(He opens his mouth and brushes his left canine. Five teeth move, about to fall out.) And there.
(He spreads his cheek and reveals gums devoid of molars, top and bottom.) Here.
It's horrible, I tell you frankly.
But you live with it.
Even bread is complicated, because I can't chew.
I chew with my gums.
But my gums, they don't chew enough.
It doesn't cut enough.
Meat, I can't chew it.
I swallow it.
I have to.
Anything thick cuts me inside, the skins of my cheeks.
And when I talk to you, I don't explain the pain I feel.
Even speaking, I know it vibrates.
Look (he points to his two canines, in happy teeth).
There is a hole.
And before, it wasn't there.
There was a lag.
They were as tight as yours.
But over time, it happened like that.
I lost the back teeth that served as the foundation.
And it was over.
Everything shifted.
I had back pain.
I make an appointment with the osteopath to manipulate me, because it was no longer possible.
He tells me to straighten up.
I didn't open my mouth.
And he said to me, "You're missing teeth here and there."
Everything came from the teeth, even my sore eyes and migraines.
And it's been like that for years.
What solutions are available to you?
I just have an appointment at the Conception Hospital.
I have to have it all ripped out, because it's screwed up.
The simplest solution afterwards is dentures.
At my age: I am 52 years old.
So 52 years old, no more teeth.
That, I see badly.
With what he did to me, the bone is completely damaged in the sinuses.
So, I have to do a bone graft to be able to think about doing implants.
Implants, in France, are overpriced for a whole mouth.
So, I am prospecting to be able to do it in Hungary.
It is still a European country.
They have pretty decent grades.
But there are still some for 15,000 euros.
What do you expect from this trial?
We cannot take advantage of the system and abuse the health of people who cannot afford it.
It is certain that people who would have had the means, after the process and the explanations, they would have said: “Goodbye and thank you!
»
I want him to clearly pay for what he did to us, and that he can at least help us find a smile.
If the day I have to testify during the trial, I have more teeth because it comes after my operation at La Conception, well, I would come to speak without teeth.
I would show that to everyone, and I think they will measure that at 52, no longer having any teeth… And then, he too, will be able to see what he has done.
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Dentiste
Marseilles
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