After waiting four years for treatment that never came, Jeffrey Miners, 58, said he had no choice but to remove one of his teeth himself.

“I was in such pain I didn’t know what to do,” Mr Miners said.

“The swelling in my mouth was growing and my throat was the size of a tennis ball.”

Mr Miners said that in desperation he had wriggled his tooth around with his fingers until it became loose enough to remove.

“It took a while, and it was a pretty painful way to do it,” he said.

“But I had to bring the government’s attention to the state of dental care in New South Wales.”

Mr Miners said he last had treatment through Greater Southern Area Health in 2005, but that it was only a filling.

“I have had severe dental problems for years, but they said they wont do surgery on me for other underlying health problems,” he said.

“I have had lots of referrals and examinations but nothing has been done.”

Mr Miners said he still doesn’t have a date for the dental surgery he desperately needs.

In a press release, Shadow Minister for Health Jillian Skinner said it “is simply outrageous that this man has had to pull out his own tooth after the government couldn’t see its way clear to give him the dental care he so obviously needs”.

“Patients like Jeffery Miners are waiting in pain and undertaking drastic action because Health Minister Reba Meagher has failed to give them appropriate dental care,” she said.

“You don’t need to be a dentist to see that patients like Jeffery Miners need urgent dental care, but the government is so incompetent it can’t even get that right.

“Patients shouldn’t have to take matters into their own hands in the face of dithering and inaction from the government.

“Public dental care in NSW is solely the responsibility of the government, which has failed to understand the importance of dental health and refused to allocate funds to treat the tens of thousands on the waiting list.

“There are 158,791 people are on dental waiting lists in NSW and it’s high time action was taken.”