KEY POINTS:
At least 40 school dental clinics in Auckland City face closure under a Government plan designed to improve children's teeth.
Nationally only 52 per cent of 5-year-olds were free of tooth decay, according to the latest statistics available, from 2005. At 60 per cent, Auckland City children were
better than average. Northland was worst at 31 per cent, slightly ahead of the Maori national rate of 30 per cent.
The Government has committed an extra $40 million to running school dental services over four years, and $100 million for construction and new equipment, in a bid to rebuild services hampered by outdated facilities and equipment, short-staffing and an ageing workforce. All 21 district health boards must write a business case for their local rebuilding plan.
The Auckland DHB yesterday gave the first indication of which of the 59 intermediate and primary school clinics in the city would close under its draft plan to consolidate services at fewer, larger clinics.
Up to 16 new clinics will be built, or existing ones rebuilt. Called "community" clinics, they are likely to be at existing school sites, but some may be built away from schools and open for longer hours.
Greater use may be made of mobile clinics and transport may be provided to treat those without a fixed clinic at their school, or parents may have to ferry their children. Some schools, including Gladstone and Pt Chevalier, may have a portable clinic for up to four months a year. Some of the new clinics might also treat adolescents.
The draft plan will be the subject of consultation and public meetings before a case is written for the health board and Ministry of Health.
But the board management is bracing for opposition from communities whose schools will lose a clinic.
"It will be reasonably controversial because everyone will have an opinion on the most appropriate way to deal with things," a funding and planning manager, Wendy Hoskin, told a board committee meeting yesterday.
"We have already had quite a lot of anxiety expressed to us from principals, that we are moving something from their school."
Alastair Fletcher, the principal of Chaucer School in Blockhouse Bay - slated to lose its clinic - was enthusiastic about the plan for his pupils to be assessed in a mobile clinic and go to another school for treatment, until told that that school was Marshall Laing, about 1.5km away and across busy roads.
"It should be Blockhouse Bay Intermediate, which is 300m away on a back road. The children can walk there."
Dental Therapists Association president Karen Boyce-Bacon said the group was excited by the programme. Many clinics were out-of-step with new standards, she said.