Emergency dental buck passed to Winz

Responsibility for helping low-income adults pay for emergency dental care is about to pass from Whanganui District Health Board to Winz.
From next week the board will no longer part-fund dental treatment for the needy, leaving this to Work and Income New Zealand (Winz). At the same time Wanganui Hospital dental surgeon Helen Lloyd has reduced her hours, with no replacement found as yet.
A Winz staff member said unless the funding the department provided was in the form of a special needs grant ? and an applicant can only get one of these a year ? it would have to be repaid at the rate of at least $10.50 a week.
Wanganui dentist David Evans said the combination of staff shortage and the need to go to Winz could have quite considerable impact on low-income people, who often had a mouthful of dental problems. He said some people with Community Services Cards, who were previously entitled to help, would be reluctant to go to Winz and ask for it.
He had found the Winz approach to funding inconsistent at times.
"You can have two quotes that are identical. One gets approved and one doesn't."
Health Ministry chief oral health advisor Clive Wright said in New Zealand there were three ways low income people could get help with essential dental work.
They were:
+ getting the work done by a hospital dentist
+ applying to Winz, and
+ through part-funding of private dentists by district health boards.
Boards are now funded by Government on a per-head-of-population basis, with allowances made for more needy populations. They can decide for themselves how much dental assistance to give their population and what form to give it in.
Every year nearly 5000 people in the Whanganui DHB region take advantage of the Essential Dental Services Agreement to get work done on their teeth. Whanganui District Health Board human resources general manager Siwsan Naughton said this cost $560,000 a year ? 44 percent more than the national average for boards.
This agreement will be terminated from January 31, because the DHB is trying to claw back the $1 million deficit it racked up in the first six months of this financial year.
So the agreement with private dentists ends on Monday.
The board suggests needy people approach Winz instead, says this is what is done in most other regions and says it will still spend more than the average on dental health.
A letter to dentists from the board's planning, improvement and funding general manager, Beth-Maree Cooper, says it is important that emergency dental services continue to be available and Winz wants to ensure this.
A Winz staff member, answering the department's 0800 559 009 general inquiries line, said people wanting the department to help with payment for essential dental work would have to make an appointment with a case manager in Wanganui, Taihape or Marton.
They would be allocated a case manager if they didn't already have one, and an appointment would be found on the same day if they were in pain.
The case manager would see if they were entitled to assistance, with the amount offered determined by circumstances. They would be given a form, to be filled in by the dentist.
Unless the money they received was a special needs grant, they would be expected to repay it.
Getting essential work done by a hospital dentist may be impossible this year if there is no dentist at Wanganui Hospital. The position is being advertised.
Private dentists were told in a December letter that Dr Lloyd would be working reduced hours from January 10 for 12 months, and "virtually all adult inpatient and outpatient dental care will not be provided at the hospital until further notice".
Dr Lloyd or Taranaki District Health Board would continue to provide advice to dental therapists and theatre sessions for children.
Adults should still apply to Wanganui Hospital's dental unit, and would receive advice and referral ? most likely to Palmerston North.