17 December 2012

Modern school dental facilities now available for all children in Waitemata

Modern school dental facilities are now available for all children in the Waitemata district.

Three new school dental clinics open this month in western and northern Auckland, completing Waitemata District Health Board’s three year, $12.3 million programme to provide modern, comfortable dental facilities for children and families in the district.

“Good oral health and hygiene is a vitally important part of general health,” says Waitemata DHB CEO Dr Dale Bramley. “By supporting high quality oral health services for young people in our district, we are helping set them up for good health later in life.”

The new clinics – in Birkenhead, Glen Eden and Westgate – take the total number of modernised school dental clinics in the Waitemata district to 11. In addition to the fixed clinics, six dental vans and 15 transportable dental units covering 48 locations are also in operation.

“The dental clinics have all been sited centrally, ensuring easy access for the parents of preschoolers and schoolchildren living in those communities.

“But we know that those at greatest risk of poor oral health often have difficulty getting to fixed sites due to a lack of transportation, so we’ve commissioned mobile dental vans and transportable dental units so we can come to them,” says Dr Bramley.

In total, the new facilities cater to some 92,000 children and young adults aged under 18 in the district.

Auckland Regional Dental Service operations manager Helene May says the new facilities are a big improvement.

“The last school dental clinics in our district were built in the 1960s, so this is a significant step up from what most schools had before we started our modernisation programme.

“The clinics – along with the vans and transportable dental units – all come equipped with the latest x-ray facilities, enabling quick, easy diagnosis.

“They are also bright and spacious, with room for parents and children to attend appointments together.”

Ms May says the modernised facilities enable the service to work in partnership with parents and caregivers more easily, enabling a greater focus on prevention.

This is being made possible through:

Increased enrolments of pre-school children (in particular Maori and Pacific children who have lower dental access rates)
Increased opportunities to provide early preventive treatment (as x-ray facilities are now available on-site)
Extended opening hours, with clinics open outside school hours and during school holidays. (The old clinics also used to open and close as the dental therapist rotated between schools, making it difficult for the public to know where to go. The community now have one base clinic that will be open and accessible all year.)
Increasing parent, whanau and caregiver participation through oral healthcare education
Increased availability of information through the national 0800 TALK TEETH number

ENDS

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