Dental school to close?

Press, 20 September 1980, Page 6

Dental school to close?

Health reporter

Christchurch may lose its training school ■ for dental nurses, the only one in the South Island. Part of the school has already been closed, and a decision is expected next month on the fate of the rest of the school, which was opened in 1956.

Consideration of closing the school is part of a review of dental training under the control of the Health Department. This review, the results of which are expected in late October, is being done by the Deputy Minister of finance : (Mr •Templeton), the Associate Minister of Finance (Mr

Quigley), and the .Minister of State' Services (Mr Thomson).. , New Zealand’s three den-tal-nurses’ trailing schools, in Christchurch, Wellington; and Auckland, are all part of this review, made necessary because of a dramatic decrease in the number of traineee school dental nurses needed in New Zealand. The Christchurch school at present has 51 nurses in training. About half of these are first-year trainees, and the rest are in the final year of the two-year course. The school dental nurses are the training 10 years ago. Only 90 trainees for the school dental service were accepted for training in the: three schools this year; al:

decade ago there were more than 230. The main reasons for the diminished demand for school dental nurse s are the improved standard of dental health in schoolchildren, the effects of fluoridation throughout New Zealand, the decline in school rolls, and The effects of more than 20 years of public education on dental care.

The Health Department, which owns all the land on which the school is based, opposite the Christchurch Women’s Hospital in Colombo Street, has already relinquished the former hostel for dental nurses. This is now under the control of the Lands and Survey Department.

Dr W. C. Burgess, viceprincipal of the school, said yesterday that the school’s fate was in the balance, but there, was “nothing official” on a closing decision yet.

Mr M. Hollis, assistant director of the Dental-Health Division of the Health Department. said in Wellington yesterday that when the decision was announced in late October to close “one or more” of the schools, the properties no longer required would be considered for the use of other health services. If they .were not required for such services, it was normal practice to investigate their use by other Government departments, or to sell them on the open market.