Old clinics to go in $10.4m dental boost

Old dental clinics serving children of more than 120 schools in Auckland City will close over the next three years as Government agencies revitalise and expand oral health care.

In a $10.4 million construction plan intended to expand treatment and reduce delays, the Auckland District Health Board will build 13 community clinics.

This is part of a $116 million national plan to replace clinics considered outdated, too small and in some cases hazardous, with fewer, generally larger community clinics and more mobile clinics.

Health Minister Tony Ryall said yesterday his Government was proceeding with Labour's plan to rebuild the school dental service.

Of the 21 DHBs, only five - including Waitemata and Counties Manukau - were yet to have their business cases approved.

Mr Ryall said the real challenge was the large delays, particularly in Auckland and also in parts of the Bay of Plenty.
Waitemata and Counties Manukau were the worst nationally, he said, with 42 per cent of children not having seen a dental therapist in the year to December 2007, the latest period for which data was available.

For Auckland DHB, the figure was 35 per cent, Bay of Plenty 25 per cent, and Canterbury 10 per cent.

"The Ministry of Health advises they are not expecting much improvement on that in the 2008 data."

The Auckland DHB has identified 11 primary or intermediate schools as sites for the new-style clinics and the locations of two more are undecided. The number of dental clinics in vans - mostly for diagnosis and preventive care, although one is also for treatment - will increase to nine.

Existing clinics not replaced or retained "will be handed over to schools for school use or demolition", the ADHB business case says.

Under the new service, to be introduced over four years from July, schoolchildren will generally have their teeth checked in a mobile clinic, unless there is a community clinic at their school.

Most needing treatment will later be transported in vans or by their parents to a community clinic. Pre-schoolers will be covered by the same "hub and spoke" system.

The new service will cost an extra $4.4 million a year to run and the community clinics will be open for longer each day. They may also open on Saturdays. The number of dental therapist jobs will increase to 47.5 fulltime equivalents, from 35.7.

In some low-income areas, including Avondale and Mt Roskill, therapists will treat pupils from nearby high schools at the community clinics in a bid to increase the number of adolescents receiving free dental care.

At present less than half of those aged 13 to 17 in Auckland City are enrolled in the state-paid scheme.

Dental Association executive director David Crum said treating more adolescents in the school/community service would put children's teeth at risk because it would spread therapists, of whom there was already a shortage, more thinly.

NEW CLINICS

* Community Dental Service clinics will be built at 13 schools: Avondale Intermediate, Grey Lynn School, Auckland Normal Intermediate, Balmoral Intermediate, Blockhouse Bay Intermediate, May Road (or Owairaka District Primary), Mt Roskill Intermediate, Onehunga Primary, Otahuhu Primary, Sylvia Park and St Heliers. Sites are undecided for Glen Innes and Remuera/Newmarket.
* Te Huruhi (Waiheke) Primary School's existing clinic will be refurbished.
* The dental training clinic in Royal Oak will remain unchanged.
* Great Barrier Island children will continue to be treated in a dentist's clinic on the island.
* Mobile dental clinics will be increased to nine vans.