NEW DENTAL WORKS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 782, 1 October 1929, Page 16

NEW DENTAL WORKS

THIRTY-FOUR NEXT YEAR RESERVE OF NURSES THE SUN’S Parliament ary Reporter PARLIAMENT BLDGS., Monday. On April' .1. next-yew 34 new scbodl dental clinics will be opened in various parts of New Zealand, according to an announcement made by the Minister of Health, the Hon. A. J. Stallworthy, this evening. The Minister said that he was not in a position to state the centres or the district to which nurses would be sent, but in a few weeks’ time it was possible that he might be able to announce the allocation. , This Work is in accordance with the . Minister’s expressed aim of spreading the clinics as fairly and as rapidly as possible. Preference naturally will be given, however, to those districts in which parents are prepared to help themselves. With clinics built on school property, education boards provide one third of the total cost. In the case of clinics oil other, property parents have to provide the cost of the building and the working expenses of nurses. In most districts parents are willing and anxious to do this. About 39 nurses would finish training this year at the school in Wellington, Mr. Stallworthy explained, and these would be available for service on April 1 of next year. Five nurses of the 39 will be held in reserve and the remainder posted, either to . new clinics or existing ones where the volume of work necessitated the services of more than one nurse. Mr. Stallworthy said that for some time it had not been possible to hold nurses in reserve, so that the service was disorganised when nurses married or left the service. 'With five nurses in reserve the system should work with complete success, however. At present the department is spending £45,000 yearly on school dental clinics, but the Minister- considers the money well spent. The Minister forecast that in the near future the expenditure might reach £IOO,OOO, so keen was the demand from various centres for the benefit of the service.