Waikato schools to miss out on new clinics
Four schools in the Waikato area will miss out on valuable funding programmes, it has been announced.
The schools, including Bankwood, Melville, Te Awamutu and Silverdale Normal schools, will now miss out on the funding they were promised by the Waikato District Health Board last year. The money was going to be used to establish new clinics to treat school children.
The District Health Board has now announced a revised budget, which will include spending cut backs; representatives from the Health Board said that the plans were now not affordable. Instead, the schools will be serviced by a mobile dental unit.
Principals of the schools affected by budget cuts have expressed their sincere disappointment at the announcement; Dianne Pollard-Williams, head of Melville Primary School, said she was looking forward to having the clinic in the community and was subsequently disappointed to find that the plans had been scrapped. The new clinic would have benefitted many people in the local area, as well as the children from the school. Having a mobile unit will simply not be the same because the unit will only visit schools periodically through the year.
Lynne Holder, of Silverdale Normal School, echoed Ms Pollard-William’s comments and said that the change in plans would impact upon the health of the children that attend the schools involved. According to Ms Holder, parents will be forced to travel long distances to see a dentist; this will be extremely difficult for parents that don’t drive.
Representatives from the District Health Board have said they will do all they can to make dental services in the area as effective and accessible as possible; the fleet of mobile dental units will increase significantly and it is hoped that all children in the area will have access to the dental services they require.
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