The father of a six-year-old who was treated at a South Auckland dental clinic at the centre of a health scare is furious families were not alerted sooner.
Photo: 123rf
About 2500 children are being tested for HIV and hepatitis after they were treated with contaminated equipment at Pukekohe Intermediate dental clinic between 13 September and 23 January.
Hundreds of parents have taken their children to emergency clinics for testing today after it was revealed yesterday a hose used to suck out saliva and blood from children's mouths was connected to one that blows in air.
Stuart Johnstone said he was taking his 6-year-old to the family GP for a blood test because he did not trust the Counties Manukau District Health Board.
He was angry he was not personally contacted about the contamination scare instead of seeing it on a newsfeed on Facebook.
"We're really annoyed about that given that they'd known about it since the 23rd of January and still no one's had the decency to phone us," he said.
Mr Johnstone was worried that "our beautiful young 6-year-old with so much potential has been exposed to a deadly disease".
Stuart Johnstone would take his daughter to a private dentist to have her filling fixed and send the bill to the DHB.
Parents deserved better, he said.
"It's not hard to get a group of people together to start ringing some parents and actually just talk to us, let us know what's going on, give us the correct information," Mr Johnstone said.
They had contacted the hotline last night but were not satisfied with what they were told.
Many parents who were at the emergency clinics today were too anxious to speak.
But those who did said they heard about the scare on the news or social media last night.
"My reaction was: oh dear," one father said. He was a "little bit" concerned because his daughter was special needs and getting the blood test was going to be "a bit of an issue".
A mother said she was a "little bit" worried but decided to do some research rather than panic and found that the risks were very low.
Labour's health spokesperson Annette King said the DHB had to speak to parents urgently.
"They need to up their game in terms of advising parents. Parents are worried, they hear the words of HIV, hepatitis B and C. They're worried, is it my child, will they be affected," Ms King said.
Infectious diseases specialist Dr Tim Blackmore, who had given advice to the DHB on the scare said the risk of a child catching anything worse than a cold was "absolutely negligible".
"If a child treated after another child they could have got a cold or something like that from the previous child but for the scary viruses that have been mentioned like HIV, Hep B and Hep C, the risks from those are extremely low," Dr Blackmore said.
Children who were treated later in the risk period should wait a few weeks to be tested, he said.
"Somebody had dental work a couple of weeks ago then I personally would advise them to wait because a: the chances of them getting anything are close to non existent and they'll get better reassurance with a later test," he said.
The DHB's chief medical officer Gloria Johnson said the DHB did not want parents to find out by social media.
It had planned to open the hotline, open clinics, start calling parents and to make a statement to the media simultaneously at 9am today but it was forced to change that when it was leaked to the media yesterday.
"We are obviously dismayed as well, we don't want people to be finding these things out via social media," Mrs Johnson said.
"Our hand was forced last night because there was some kind of leak from someone to some media outlets late yesterday afternoon and then of course we had media insisting that they wanted to speak to us last night."
She said the helpline was opened last night to take calls from parents.
Mrs Johnson said all parents would be contacted within seven days but people who were worried could call the hotline and speak to someone urgently.
The first test results would come back tomorrow, she said.
Meanwhile, DHBs around the country were being urged to check their dental equipment. All other clinics in Auckland had been cleared.
