DENTAL CLINICS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 July 1942, Page 3

DENTAL CLINICS

MEETING OF CENTRAL EXECUTIVE FUTURE ADMINISTRATIONS. EARTHQUAKE EXPEDITES PLANS. A meeting of the Central Dental Clinic Committee was held last evening, Mr E. G. Coddington presiding, and there were also present Mrs J. G Dagg, Messrs J. G. McFarlane, L. Robinson, S. G. Allan, R. Graham, R. Chamberlain, P. H. Shaw and A. Gibbs. Mr A. W. Brice, Senior Dental Officer, Wellington, was also present. The chairman presented a report of the activities of the clinic and the work that had been undertaken by the executive since the last full meeting held in October. In the report he stated that matters connected with the clinic had moved along quite successfully until the earthquake on June 24, following which urgent temporary arrangements had to be made to carry on the work. Separate temporary clinics had been set up at the Central, Masterton West and Lansdowne schools and were in operation once more within a few days of the disorganisation. A further set back had been met with when the Hospital Board authorities took over Lansdowne School and this clinic had to be closed. Successful arrangements had been made to rent a room in the Arcade Buildings in Queen Street, and the Lansdowne Clinic was now temporarily operating there. With the alterations that had had to be made in establishing temporary individual clinics, the question of decentralising was one which required discussion and Mr Coddington said he was of opinion that administration had become a matter for each school concerned. Every effort had been made by the executive to hasten the establishment of separate school clinics and letters had been forwarded along those lines to the Ministers of Education and of Health, and sympathetic replies had been received in each case. In the discussion that followed it was agreed that the three separate clinic committees which had been set up some time ago be asked to function immediately and to take over the ad-

ministration of their particular school clinic as from August 1, and that the Central Committee function until such time as its affairs were cleaned up. Mr Brice, Senior Dental Officer, assured members that everything possible was being done by his Department to have- the present unsatisfactory state of affairs improved, and the clinics established in suitable buildings. He expressed his Department’s appreciation of the assistance given it by the committee’s executive and the headmasters of the three main schools, immediately following the earthquake and of the excellent effort in establishing the temporary clinics and having them in operation within a few days. Although Mr McFarlane was . not now directly associated with any of the schools concerned in the clinic arrangements, he undertook to continue as secretary-treasurer until such time as the central committee’s affairs had been wound up.