DELAY DENIED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 196, 19 August 1936, Page 19

DELAY DENIED.

DENTAL HOSPITAL WORK

EXPLANATION BY CHAIRMAN.

A denial that people had to wait 13 months for dentures to be supplied by the Auckland Hospital Board was given by the chairman of the relief committee, Mr. W. A. Bishop,'at a meeting of the board yesterday.

Mr. Bishop said that a complaint made at a previous meeting had been investigated and it was found that the longest period of waiting, from the date, of application to the date of appointment for an impression had been five months. Arrears were being caught up, and there were now only 73 people waiting for dentures and 19 for fillings.

"I have made careful investigation of complaints," said Mrs. M. M. Dreaver, "and I have found that in many cases people have waited a year and in some cases two years after extraction before their names have again come before the relief committee for dentures. I want to make it clear that there is no reflection on Sir Alexander Young, the supervising dental surgeon. There was no head of the department for eight months, and that caused the trouble. There is something wrong with the system."

Mrs.. A. G. Anderton: We can't give people teeth unless they apply for them. Some people, after having teeth out at the clinic, might find themselves in a position to pay for a set and go elsewhere.

Mr. Bishop explained that dentures could not be fitted until teeth had been out six months. It was entirely their own fault if people had been kept waiting that length of time. People had been kept waiting only five months from the time of application.