19 May 2004

Registration Fees For Dental Therapists Excessive

The Dental Council’s registration and annual practising certificate fees for dental therapists are excessively high and will be yet another administrative cost for district health boards to pick up,” said New Zealand First health spokesperson, Barbara Stewart.

“When the Health Practitioners Competency Act comes into force on 18 September 2004 the Dental Council proposes charging $750 for each dental therapist practising.

“This totally unjustified fee consists of $500 for an annual practising certificate and $150 for registration.

“The end result will be that the district health boards have to spend funds from their already overstretched oral health budgets just to ensure that their dental therapists are able to work and there will be no consequent benefits to the consumers, in this case the children served by the DHB’s,” said Mrs Stewart.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>