Country dentists rare as hen's teeth

Another New Zealand town is about to lose its regular dentist as the shortage in rural areas gets worse.

Taumarunui will soon have only one part-time dentist and residents will have to travel for up to an hour for urgent treatment.

The New Zealand Dental Association says expensive student fees and the large number of non-New Zealand born students enrolled in the dentistry programme are to blame for what has become a growing trend.

Taumarunui dentist Barry Thomson, who has practised in the area since 1974, is due to retire officially today and has been unable to sell his practice. That leaves Garry Van Den Borst, who works every second week in Wellington, to serve a population of about 12,000 people.

Anyone needing urgent treatment when he is not in town will have to travel to Te Kuiti, Turangi or Ohakune.

Other parts of the country including Invercargill, the West Coast and Taihape are also suffering shortages. Kaitaia will be down to one dentist by the end of the year.

Dr Thomson said the practice, which had been on the market for 18 months, would close.

"It's not ideal but there are lots of other small towns around the country without dentists ... there will be a lot more."

New Zealand Dental Association chief executive David Crum said the number of New Zealand-born residents taking the five-year dentistry programme at Otago University had dropped. Each year 54 domestic students and up to 10 foreign full-fee paying students were enrolled in the programme.

"There have been classes in the last five years that have had less than six New Zealand-born students.

"Others may have residency here or citizenship but have come to the country for tertiary training and clearly have no intention of staying," Dr Crum said.

"If you don't have people coming from smaller communities the dentists don't identify with going back and living in those communities."

Dr Crum said dental students faced fees of $11,000 a year and when they graduated sought higher paying jobs in the cities or overseas. Many female graduates, who went on to have families, wanted only part-time work.

The association had concerns about the small number of New Zealand-born students and had successfully sought changes to the selection criteria to ensure that more than academic achievement was taken into account, he said.

Students were now also assessed on abilities such as logical reasoning, empathy and communication skills.

Alison Rich, associate dean of undergraduate studies at the dental school, said informal figures collected by students showed this year's second-year class included 21 New Zealand-born students.

She said research showed that a student's country of origin did not always correlate with where they ended up working. Many New Zealand-born graduates went overseas. Some research indicated half of graduates headed overseas.

She said the dental school wanted the Government to consider extra funding for places for people from smaller, rural communities as it was doing for medical students.

Michael Bain, a dentist in Kerikeri and chairman of the association's workforce committee, said dentists in small towns and rural areas were under a lot of pressure. It was difficult to turn people away who were in distress and many were working long hours to meet the needs of their communities. Some had waiting lists of eight weeks for routine procedures such as check-ups and fillings.

Dentists wanted here

* Taumarunui: One part-time dentist working every second week.

* Kaitaia: Down to one dentist by the end of the year.

* Invercargill, the West Coast, Taihape: All experiencing shortages.