Lack of after-hours dental care

There is a lack of after hours dental care in Rotorua.

People needing dental care outside normal hours are being "medically managed" at hospital emergency departments because of a shortage of dentists available for after-hours care.

While Rotorua does have an on-call duty roster with a small number of practices included, Lakes District Health Board community oral health services manager Juan Restrepo said the after-hours roster had "ongoing pressures" with a shortage of staff able to be available outside of their normal working hours.

The issue was raised by Rotorua resident Heath Perry through a Letter to the Editor to the Rotorua Daily Post.

He said he was "horrified" recently to discover that Rotorua did not have an emergency dentist on-call during a particular weekend and that those needing a dentist had to travel to Tauranga.

He said after ringing around dentists in Rotorua it was only when he rang the public hospital he discovered that not one was on call.

Mr Restrepo said as a result of the pressures in finding staff to work on-call, the Lakes District Health Board had encouraged the medical management of after hours dental issues either at Lakes PrimeCare or Rotorua Hospital.

"In the event of an emergency, people contacting their family doctor are likely to be medically managed with pain relief, until such time as they are able to arrange an appointment with their regular dentist."

The health board funded emergency dental care for low income adults only, and that was mostly during standard business hours, he said.

Mr Restrepo said most issues could be medically managed and he did not believe the numbers of people travelling to Tauranga for emergency dental care were high.

Tauranga practice Team Dental takes after-hours patients from around the wider Bay of Plenty area.

Practice manager Sarah Lockett said they would get "one or two" patients from Rotorua on any given weekend. They also got patients from Whakatane and Taupo, she said. "We get quite a lot who chose to come here anyway as regular patients."