Thursday, 10 June 2021, 11:04 am
Ronal Luxton, retired pharmacist and long-time owner of
Temuka Pharmacy, and chairperson of South Canterbury
District Health Board, was awarded the Queen’s Service
Medal as part of the Queen’s Birthday Honours.
Mr
Luxton has served the South Canterbury district by leading
fundraising appeals, holding governance roles in the
education and health sectors, and volunteering with Lions
Clubs International on a regional, national and
international level.
He says winning the Queen’s
Service Medal “is a humbling, but pleasant
surprise.”
Mr Luxton has been a member of the Temuka
Lions Club since 1974 and has held several leadership
“When I was unable to do what they had asked, it left me in doubt as to whether my appointment would go ahead.” He said he received another text message on Wednesday, saying he should call the number if he needed to cancel. “I took from that, that my appointment was going ahead.” Neither of the messages included an address of the clinic he was expected to attend, so he said he called his GP to find out it was being held at the Waimate Rugby Clubrooms.
Francisco Seco/AP
Frozen vials of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine. (File photo)
In 2019, more than 40 per cent of 5-year-olds in New Zealand had tooth decay. Ministry of Health data shows between 2001 and 2016, the number of 0 to 14-year-olds requiring general anaesthetic for rotten teeth removal increased from 4500 to 7500. One hundred years since the school dental service was established in this country in 1921, our children’s teeth are falling through the gaps.
Chris Skelton/Stuff
Dr Arun Natarajan, left, a paediatric dental specialist at Christchurch Hospital, performs extractions on a 3-year-old child who underwent anaesthesia to have 10 rotten teeth removed. For more than eight decades, dental nurses managed an often-dreaded regime of dental checks and drills, cotton wool angels and amalgam, usually from small wooden buildings or allocated rooms on the school grounds.