{"id":519852,"date":"2026-07-10T21:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T21:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/519852\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T21:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T21:14:10","slug":"fully-furnished-house-offered-as-part-of-job-in-bid-to-attract-dentist-to-wairoa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/519852\/","title":{"rendered":"Fully furnished house offered as part of job in bid to attract dentist to Wairoa"},"content":{"rendered":"

A dental kaiarahi to provide chair-side assistance to the Mene Mai Ano clinical team is also been advertised, with a deadline of July 17. <\/p>\n

Paku hopes to be able to hire two dentists, as the unit has the capacity to operate with either two dentists or a dentist and an oral health hygienist concurrently. <\/p>\n

The service operates as part of an integrated model, with the workforce shared across fixed and mobile oral health services.<\/p>\n

It is currently open Fridays and Saturdays, and will be shut for the Matariki long weekend.<\/p>\n

Services include health assessments, basic restorative work, and referral to fixed clinics or secondary services where more complex care is required. <\/p>\n

Paku said employing dentists had been \u201cvery hard to do\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have had a couple of people interested, but they have gone elsewhere.\u201d <\/p>\n

She said the need for people to train elsewhere also added to the struggle. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t see it as a permanent place; it might be a stepping stone, they might come to Wairoa to work, and they might work themselves up, and then they move on to other places.\u201d<\/p>\n

She believed a potential future solution was homegrown. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you whakapapa to Wairoa, then it\u2019s easier to place those people.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuite a few people are coming back to Wairoa that were brought up here; they have gone away, and some are coming back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The town has been without a permanent adult dental service since 2020. <\/p>\n

At an initiative called T\u014d Waha in January<\/a> to provide free dental care, Golden Apple dentist Isha Woodhams said they were overwhelmed at the number of people needing urgent help. <\/p>\n

\u201cI originally thought just three or four days would be enough, and now I think even if I am here for the rest of the year, we might not catch up,\u201d Woodhams said at the time. <\/p>\n

Health NZ\u2019s acting general manager of specialist and community services in Hawke\u2019s Bay, Wietske Cloo, said Hawke\u2019s Bay was one of the districts prioritised for investment in the first tranche of the Budget 2022 mobile dental initiative. <\/p>\n

\u201cSince 2023, Kahungunu Executive has been working closely with Health New Zealand Hawke\u2019s Bay to deliver a short-term solution to Wairoa\u2019s lack of oral health services.\u201d <\/p>\n

Cloo said the units\u2019 placement reduced the cost and time barriers to a population otherwise required to access oral healthcare further away. <\/p>\n

\u201cMene Mai An\u014d is currently operating the Mobile Oral Health Unit using locum dentists and oral health hygienists who hold contracts with Health New Zealand.<\/p>\n

\u201cLocum clinicians are operating the service on Fridays and Saturdays, with ongoing conversations underway about the potential to extend their availability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cloo said there was a shortage of dentists and oral health therapists across the sector. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis means recruitment of oral health workforce is a challenge for new services such as this one, and particularly in rural communities.\u201d <\/p>\n

Michaela Gower joined Hawke\u2019s Bay Today in 2023 and is based out of the Hastings newsroom. She covers Dannevirke and Hawke\u2019s Bay news and loves sharing stories about farming and rural communities. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A dental kaiarahi to provide chair-side assistance to the Mene Mai Ano clinical team is also been advertised,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519853,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9331,27709,806,22365,1040,33606,8498,25282,257829,13800,134,10053,78,3112,25449,342,2683,9812,111,43,139,1536,69,1118,28243,20914,5202,199,6110,165,61,2951,8443,15289,51852],"class_list":["post-519852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-chance","tag-adults","tag-as","tag-attract","tag-bid","tag-dentist","tag-fixed","tag-fully","tag-furnished","tag-giving","tag-health","tag-house","tag-in","tag-job","tag-level","tag-mobile","tag-move","tag-needs","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-next","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-offered","tag-oral","tag-part","tag-take","tag-teeth","tag-their","tag-to","tag-town","tag-unit","tag-wairoa","tag-wairoas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519852","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=519852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}