{"id":262500,"date":"2026-02-01T13:11:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T13:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/262500\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T13:11:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T13:11:12","slug":"wellington-city-mission-launches-free-dental-service-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/262500\/","title":{"rendered":"Wellington City Mission launches free dental service"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Wellington<\/p>\n

\n

Photo: RNZ \/ Samuel Rillstone\n<\/p>\n

The Wellington City Mission is launching a free dental service.<\/p>\n

It will open on 10 February and run three days a week.<\/p>\n

The Mission’s Murray Edridge said the need for the service was substantial, with one in three adults suffering from untreated tooth decay.<\/p>\n

He said people on low incomes and in hardship suffered the most.<\/p>\n

“And that’s been a consequence of lifestyle or circumstance or just the things that they’ve faced throughout their lives, and their inability to access services because of cost and other things has prevented them attending to that.”<\/p>\n

The service would be delivered by Ora Toa dentists, with appointments available by referral only from social agencies across the Greater Wellington region.<\/p>\n

\"Wellington<\/p>\n

\nWellington City Missioner Murray Edridge.
\nPhoto: Wellington City Mission\n<\/p>\n

“We all know how miserable life is if you have sore teeth,” Edridge said.<\/p>\n

“It’s just one of those things that significantly affects anybody’s wellbeing, and therefore the opportunity to provide a service to support people who have problems with their teeth is an amazing privilege that the City Mission is taking hold of.”<\/p>\n

The service will operate on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from Whakamaru on Oxford Terrace.<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero, a daily newsletter<\/a> curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: RNZ \/ Samuel Rillstone The Wellington City Mission is launching a free dental service. It will open…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-262500","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}