Posted on 03/31/2004 12:34:48 AM PST by rogueleader
A sleepy Hungarian border town where life revolved for generations around the local cabbage crop has been transformed by the whirr of hundreds of dentists' drills.
Bridges and crowns have replaced vegetables as the mainstay of Sopron's booming economy as Western "tooth tourists" flock across the old Iron Curtain for cut-price dental work in the former Communist state.
The potholed roads and crumbling homes of less than a decade ago have disappeared, replaced by tree-lined pedestrian precincts, pavement cafes and designer clothes shops.
The secret of the town's economic success is easy to identify, especially at weekends when hundreds of Austrians arrive for their discounted dental work and the drills whine from 8am until late at night.
"Zahnarzt" ("Dentist") signs are everywhere, advertising the services of Sopron's 230 surgeries - more that 500 dentists work in the town. By contrast, a British town with a similar population of 50,000 would probably be home to fewer than 20 dentists (there is about one dentist for every 2,000 Britons).
Tooth tourism is now such big business that one in two Austrians get their dental treatment in Hungary - and one in five border crossings are by people visiting a Hungarian dentist. Their custom is estimated to be worth more than £600 million a year.
So successful have the Hungarian dentists become in luring customers from the West that dentists in Austria are demanding a halt to the cross-border traffic. They claim that their countrymen are risking their dental health at the hands of what they describe as "eastern European amateurs".
The Hungarians have fought back with a large promotional campaign in Austria and cut-price treatment offers that their Austrian rivals could not dream of equalling. Tough laws have been brought in to ensure that quality remains high and that the reputation of the country's dental trade is maintained.
Tooth tourism is so lucrative that more than 1,000 dental surgeries now line the Hungarian border with Austria as doctors fluent in German and English deal with a volume of clients that their neighbours could never hope to achieve.
At the Diamond Dentist surgery in the town of Mosonmagyarovar, another nearby town that is also benefitting from the dental boom, the chief dentist, Dr Kristian Menko, rejected Austrian claims that it was just the low price that was attracting foreign patients. "Sure people come here because it's cheap, but also at the end of the day dentists in Austria just aren't that good.
"Hungarian dentists train for longer, and the training is more comprehensive. Our patients come from Germany or Switzerland, even from the Netherlands, but mainly from Austria. Look at this surgery, we have invested a fortune to make it the very best."
A ceramic crown in Hungary costs as little as €125 (£78) compared with between five and 10 times as much in Austria. Bridges and implants are a mere £230.
The umbrella organisation for the 3,300 Austrian dentists, the ZAEK, has been fighting a losing battle to stop the loss of business to the east. It has actively campaigned to stop the Hungarian dentists advertising in Austria and have won more than 100 cases to have adverts banned.
Gunther Knogler, the spokesman for the ZAEK and the head of the lobbying campaign to stop the drift to the east, said: "Our dentists should deal with patients in real pain and not have to waste their time correcting the unprofessional work of others. We warn people that if they have a bad job done in Hungary they'll find it hard to get any compensation but they don't listen."
Robert Hartlauer, an Austrian dentist, said he would like to offer cheaper prices but is stopped by European Union rules that he is challenging in the courts. "It is a fact that our dentists are losing hundreds of millions of euros profit to the east every year because of the huge price gap," he said.
"I would like to offer crowns for around €220 to €250 [£135 to £155] in my clinic, but we need a change in the law first."
Moore Parker, an Englishman who has lived and worked in Vienna for several years, said he even knew of Austrian dentists who go to Hungary for treatment. "I go across the border because it costs a tenth of the price. I originally went because I had work needed and that would have cost the equivalent of £4,000. In Hungary it worked out at £350."
Dr Menko said that his town was once a dead end. "Now it's a thriving community thanks to the dental trade. Without dentists there would be no money for the modern buildings; the flower displays, the beauty salons, restaurants and cafes would all have to close. But we are not worried. We know that's not going to happen."
Time was...the only Crown was the King of Hungary, part of the Dual Monarchy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
And...Time Was...Bridge refered to the World Famous Chain Bridge in Budapest across the Danube!
For those going...a little Language brushup is in order.
Since Hungarian is one of the few European Languages that is NOT part of the Indo-European language system...[yes, folks, most Indians are racially CAUCASIAN...the Caucasus Mountains is MIDPOINT between Europe and INDIA...which makes Indian charges of RACISM in connection with "OFFSHORING" a blatant LIE!!!]
Phonetically...
Egan = Yes
Nem = NO!
Eisht un velid = [Via Con Dios] = GO WITH GOD!!!...the classic Good Bye!
And, spend a little extra...visit the more than 140 Spas, fed by Hot Springs, that grace Budapest.
As an aside, "Turkish Bath" refers to the time the Turks ruled Hungary, and set up shop in the Spas of Margaret Island in the middle of the Danube...and, if you have ever gotten a look at Hungarian Women...well, you would appreciate why they were kidnapped as young girls for the Turkish Sultan's Harem.
One such girl, escaping the Harem before being summoned to the Sultan's bed, pilfered a delicasy of the Turks, which perished with the Ottoman Empire...a pecularily SWEET Red Pepper, which, to this day, is best grown in Hungary [Always INSIST on the import]...and lends English its only word from Hungarian...PAPRIKA!!!
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