DENTAL CLINIC FEES.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 November 1939, Page 4

DENTAL CLINIC FEES.

(CONTENTION has arisen over some detail questions arising out of the payment and non-payment, locally, ol Dental Clinic fees, but the central issue raised is that of the responsibility of parents- —a responsibility too commonly evaded in this district where the Dental Clinic is concerned. A large proportion of those who withhold the fee ol five shillings per child per annum asked for by the clinic undoubtedly are well able to make this modest payment and should be glad and willing to do so. Constant dental care is of the utmost, value as a coniribnl ion to the health and wellbeing ol children and it is most unjust that the volunteer workers who administer lhe clinic should be placed continually under the necessity 01. begging where they may for the funds that are needed to enable the institution to carrv on.

Souk* people say that the service rendered by the Dental Clinic should be paid for wholly, instead of in part only, by the Government, but helpless dependence on the Government is a policy that may easily be carried 100 far. whether from the point of view of self-respect or from 1 hat of economy. What is obtained from the Government has to be paid for indirect iy. if not directly, and sometimes at a very high rale. Members of a reasonably self-reliant and independent community should welcome on all grounds the opportunity of contribnling directly to the cost of an essential health service rendered Io their children. If it is Io be left entirely to the Government to provide a service of this kind, where is the policy ol leaning on State bounty and benevolence —the costs of which in any case must be met by the pimple—to terminate. 1 A sulticicnl extension of this policy evidently would establish general conditions of dependence and serfdom. Sim-e the parents ol pupils of one Masterton School—St Patrick’s —pay their Denial ('linie contributions in full, it appears to be sei I -evident lhal the key to a solution of the total problem is an effective appeal to the conscience of parents