Dental clinics to lose phones?

Press, 23 September 1988, Page 1

Dental clinics to lose phones?

Telephones at some school dental clinics may be disconnected to cut costs, after Telecom ended its telephone-line rental concessions. .The dental programme of the Health Department Unit has been told that the two-monthly bills for its dental clinic telephones will almost treble. The concessions, totalling an annual $lO million for Govern-ment-funded schools and hospitals, will begin to be phased out this month, in a two-month process. The 39,000 lines that have received concessions will pay the same rates as their private-sector counterparts. A senior dental officer in the unit, Mr Alan Roddick, said the budgeting for telephone costs early in the year had not taken account of the big rental increase. A decision on how the cash shortfall will be handled is expected next month when the principal dental officer, Mr Garth Dever, returns to Christchurch.

"As in other Government departments, there seems to be no supplementary funding available,” Mr Roddick said. The officials will discuss the problem with the Education Board or school committees on a case-by-case basis.. One possibility is that telephones will be left in clinics classed as main treatment centres, but removed from subbases which are manned for only six weeks or two months, twice a year. / One main centre may have up to three sub-bases under its control. The unit has inquired about disconnecting telephones at centres that are not being used, and paying the reconnection fee when staff move back in. Some of the dental equipment used by nurses is already moved from clinic to clinic.