Hon Peter Dunne Associate Minister of Health

Speech

Address at Opening of Stonefields Children’s Community Dental Clinic

Mt Wellington, Auckland 10amThursday 9 June 2011

Tēnā koutou, ngā mihi ki a koutou.

Pacific greetings to you all, and good morning.

I am delighted to be here today to celebrate the opening of this new dental clinic at your new school.

But before I talk about this new clinic, I wish to acknowledge the people who have brought us here today.

I thank Mr John Paterson, Kaumatua of Ngati Whatua and the Auckland DHB, for his warm welcome.

Today, I especially thank Mr Colin Davis who served as an advisor to the DHB during the consultation and construction stage of this clinic.

I also thank the Board of Trustees of Stonefields School, chaired by Mr Israel Vaealiki, and her principal, Ms Sarah Martin, for agreeing to locate the new oral health clinic here.

And thank you to Ms Charlotte Hinge and the students of her music class for their enthusiastic performance.

Finally, I acknowledge Ms Margo Lockie and her team at the Auckland Regional Dental Service for their vision of locating the new clinic in this new Auckland community.

The opening of this clinic is one aspect of the Government’s nationwide programme to improve oral health services for our children and teenagers.

The Government has committed $116 million of capital funding along with over $30 million each year in additional operating funding for DHBs to re-invest in delivering better children’s and teenagers’ oral health services.

Now we are beginning to see new fixed clinics and mobile facilities spring up all around the country.

This Stonefields Children’s Community Dental Clinic is the fifth of the Auckland DHB’s fourteen new dental clinics, all of which will be up and running by June next year.

These clinics will also be supported by a fleet of seven new mobile dental units.

These mobile units will visit schools and provide a range of services including examinations, x-rays, preventive care and other treatment as required.

Four of them are already now in operation around Auckland and we will see the remaining three in operation next year.

This Stonefields clinic will serve almost 5000 children from nine primary schools and several pre-schools around this community.

It will be a new experience for a lot of parents and children.

From today, you do not need to track down your community’s roving dental therapists anymore.

This clinic is the one single clinic in this area that your children can access all year round, as and when they need dental care.

For the dental therapists and dental assistants, these new clinics mean they will be working in more spacious facilities, with modern equipment, with better staff support and more time to spend with our children on prevention and oral health education.

Today is also a day about more new beginnings for your community.

As a new Auckland community, each one of us here must do all we can to set our children down a path in life that enables them to achieve to the best they can be.

I am told that about two in five children in this community currently enrolled with the oral health service do not have any dental decay.

I am sure you would all agree that we’d like more of our children here to have healthier teeth and not suffer needlessly from toothache.

Therefore, we must acknowledge, today, the important part each one of us has in supporting our children and teenagers towards better oral health.

It is about us showing leadership and setting a positive example for our young people to follow.

To achieve this, it is important that we as parents, as caregivers, as member of families and whānau, play our part in supporting our children to develop good oral health care habits.

Dental decay is a largely preventable disease.

Toothache does not need to be a normal part of our lives.

For some of us here, we grew up in the days where we would usually get our teeth drilled and filled at the dental clinic.

But this need not be the case for our children and our children’s children. From today onwards, we, the adults here, must give our children the knowledge and support they need to protect their teeth for life.

We all know what we should do to protect our teeth, such as brushing twice a day with fluoride toothpaste, flossing, and cutting back on sugary foods and fizzy drinks that can cause dental decay.

Our young people need to see us doing these things so that they will as well.

And for our very young preschool children, we must take the opportunity to give them the best possible start in their lives.

Good healthy teeth and gums enable them to thrive and get all the nutrition they need to grow well.

As parents and caregivers, we must take care not to sabotage their healthy growth by doing things that are not good for their teeth, such as putting them to bed with a bottle.

We should also keep sweets and fizzy drinks as special treats only.

It saddens me when I am told young children turn up at Auckland hospitals with terribly decayed teeth with the only option being extraction of these teeth under general anaesthesia.

For the young children in this new community, let us not make their early experience of dental care a negative one.

For its part, the Auckland DHB will be working to

· increase enrolment of Auckland’s pre-school children in its free oral health service,

· increase its delivery of preventive dental care to our children enrolled in the service,

· encourage greater use of dental services by our teenagers, and

· reach out to more children and families, particularly among Māori and Pacific families and whānau, in order that all of us can equally enjoy the benefits of good oral health.

I believe this is where the new clinics, such as this one, can really help change our children’s experience of oral health and dental care for the better. The dental therapists here will be working with you to help you support your children to look after their teeth, and provide care that helps prevent decay from happening in the first place, all in a modern and caring environment. You are encouraged to attend appointments with your children here at this clinic, and to bring along your other children as well.

This community is also fortunate to live in a region where water is fluoridated to optimal levels to help fight dental decay.

The ratepayers among us need to ensure that the new Auckland Council continues this important public health measure.

In the end, it is only by involving parents, caregivers, families and whānau in the care that our dental therapists deliver, that we can then, together as a community, really begin to improve outcomes for whole families and whānau, for both young and old, and for our future generation of New Zealanders.

Thank you. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou kātoa.

Ends.

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