Aotea Great Barrier Island. Photo:
When most visitors head to Aotea Great Barrier Island this summer it will be to enjoy a week of sand and surf.
But when dentist Dr Michael Reardon heads there in early January, it will be to spend the week working.
There hasn't been a dentist on the island for the last eight years.
But since November, Reardon has flown over from Auckland - at his own expense - and held six clinic days seeing patients. This month he is going for a week, and hopes it will be enough time to get through the 40 patients still on a waiting list to see him.
He is motivated by the great need for dental care he has seen on the island.
"The bit I'm trying to avoid, and put a fence around the top of the cliff, is people presenting with a fat face on Great Barrier Island that have to be choppered off the island to go to intensive care."
He said he knows people who have tried to take their own teeth out due to their suffering.
Dr Michael Reardon is regularly flying over to Great Barrier Island to serve as its only dentist. Photo: Supplied
Reardon has had a long affinity with the island, and had a beach house there for many years. When he became aware of the island's dental health needs, he decided to do something about it.
He said he had received great support.
"It takes a bit of energy, but I'm well supported - the Aotea Health Board Trust has been incredibly supportive."
The last dentist on the island left an equipped clinic for use, dental supply businesses in Auckland have been generous with donations, other dentists have given him equipment, and islander Charlotte McGinity volunteered to be trained up as a dental nurse.
The big cost was travel, and Reardon has applied for a grant to help with those costs.
"I have to fly there, and my nurse lives on the island, she has to drive her car and fuel is $4 a litre. There are barriers to treatment there. And the people come from limited financial means."
There are 1200 residents on Aotea Great Barrier Island, and Reardon said the average income is around $21,000 a year. Travelling to Auckland for regular dental check-ups was not always a financial option.
Reardon was trying to fix problems which had arisen after years of no dental health intervention.
He kept the cost of his service low, and said people could access a $1000 Ministry of Social Development grant.
"For $1000, in a low-expense practice, we can do quite a bit of dentistry. We can get your teeth cleaned and we can get your most urgent teeth fixed. We'll work around it and we'll certainly be able to help a lot of folk out."
Reardon was committed to helping the island, and not just in the short-term.
"I think it's my semi-retirement job, so I'm good to go for another five or six years, but I will hand the reins over to someone else eventually. I'll make sure we have a succession plan," he said.
Being back on the island had been a joy for Reardon, who had a deep commitment to the Hippocratic Oath, which he said asked medical practitioners to do no harm, relieve human suffering and share knowledge with colleagues.
"That is part of what it is to be a physician, I think."
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