By Thursday, 25 September 2025, 12:05 Pm Press Release: Action Station
Copyright scoop
A national roadshow on access to dental care sets off on
its final trip next week – and has confirmed longstanding
concerns about barriers to dental care across the
Advocacy group Dental for All – backed by
dentists, oral health therapists, unions, and frontline
service providers – begins a final roadshow through the
South Island on Saturday 27 September.
The roadshow
has visited 18 towns or centres as part of a journey that
has gone so far from the Far North to the East Coast, and
from Wellington to Rotorua.
The third and final leg of
the roadshow will visit at least 8 further towns and centres
from Invercargill to Nelson, meaning the roadshow will have
visited at least 26 towns and cities, across some 35 events.
Events have included free dental days, community
discussions, and marae and school visits.
theme of the roadshow has been an under-resourced under-18s
dental service, for which there appears to be little
government planning or accountability.
“We have heard
story after story about the under-18s service being
neglected, particularly in smaller centres, where in some
cases we’re hearing mobile dental vans haven’t visited for
years,” says Hana Pilkinton-Ching, Dental for All campaigner
and spokesperson. “Making dental truly public – building an
integrated child, adolescent, and adult community dental
service – would improve planning and accountability for the
under 18s service, and mean the government has to square up
to the fact that oral health is part of general health, and
needs urgent attention.”
Advertisement – scroll to continue reading
country, community members have spoken about painful
attempts to extract their own teeth because of cost barriers
– a cost barrier that the most recent New Zealand Health
Survey stops almost half of all New Zealanders from
accessing the dental care that they
“It’s alarming how often we have
heard of people being left to pursue DIY dentistry, because
of the prohibitive cost barrier,” says Pilkinton-Ching. “The
need is enormous, and the Government knows it, so the longer
the Government chooses not to act on dental, the more the
Government is condoning the significant suffering people are
going through across the country when it comes to oral
Dental for All is calling for the government
to implement free, universal dental, delivered consistently
with Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
When New Zealand’s public
healthcare system was established in 1938, some dentists
lobbied for the exclusion of dental from the service, though
dental care for under-18s is free. That exclusion of dental
continues to today.
Research commissioned by Dental
for All shows the cost of universal dental, at $1-2bn, is
less than what the current exclusion of dental from the
public system is costing society, with FrankAdvice research
showing that the current approach to dental is costing the
country $2.5bn in lost productivity and $3.1bn in reduced
quality of life.
In the Far North and on the East
Coast local providers have told Dental for All that they are
seeking to establish accessible local oral health services
because the need is urgent – but there is little or no
government support for those measures.
communities and health providers, especially Māori health
providers, are seeing the problems in oral health and acting
on them by trying to set up local accessible dental
services,” says Pilkinton-Ching. “But it shouldn’t be down
to local providers to fundraise or volunteer time – this is
a nationwide crisis that demands a nationwide
Major Dental for All community discussions
will be held in Dunedin on the evening of Monday 29
September and Christchurch on the evening of Wednesday 1
October, with the roadshow closing with an event in Nelson
on the evening of Monday 6 October.
Hana Pilkinton-Ching and Kayli Taylor are available for
interviews. Hana can be contacted on 027 253 4641, and Max
Harris can be contacted on 022 426 8939 on background or to
arrange interviews.
– Details of many of the remaining
Dental for All community events can be found online here: https://our.actionstation.org.nz/calendars/dental-for-all-roadshow
In the 2024 NZ Health Survey, 45% of New Zealand adults
reported unmet dental need due to cost: https://www.health.govt.nz/publications/annual-update-of-key-results-202324-new-zealand-health-survey
Details of the cost of excluding dental from the public
healthcare system in terms of lost productivity ($2.5bn) and
reduced quality of life ($3.1bn) can be found in this
FrankAdvice report at p 4: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/6716db8303911558a264ceeb/t/6893fb04bd24865e5efa7e1f/1754528521108/FrankAdvice_report_for_Dental_for_All_Coalition.pdf
© Scoop Media
