File photo. Photo: Supplied
The system for dental check ups in Corrections facilities isn't like going to your local once a year - prisoners must request services and are only seen in emergency circumstances.
A dentist who's been working in men's prisons for nearly a decade said she only treats severe cases.
But advocates say that's not good enough.
Lauren Grierson is just like any other dentist, performing tooth extractions and fixing broken teeth - but her patients aren't your regular cliental.
For almost ten years, she's worked in prisons around the North Island, treating inmates who come to see her in urgent need of dental care.
"It's really treated more like an urgent clinic," Grierson said.
"There are different levels of teeth there.
"It's not just bad teeth and methamphetamine, with rotting stumps everywhere, it's humans like you and like me as well."
Grierson treated a number of ailments, and unlike what she's sometimes asked, she isn't putting in gold crowns or grills.
"I'm happy to treat lacerations and do so on a semi-regular basis [...] I might see three or four of those a year maybe, jaw fractures, maybe a couple of those a year.
"Broken teeth, they happen whether there's a scuffle or whether there's been tooth decay, we see a lot of that and we treat a lot of that.
"That's my main bread and butter, fixing what I can, taking out what I can't."
Grierson is one of 12 contractors working in prisons across the country each week.
"It's not a scary job," she said.
"I didn't really know what it was going to be like when I first started, and I had visions of it being quite a scary, dangerous job.
"But I feel like I'm valued by the men, I think that the work we do is life-changing in some respects."
Corrections director of physical health and chief nurse, Ben Storey, said inmates were only seen in the most severe of circumstances.
"Under our Corrections Act and our Corrections regulations, we have the responsibility to ensure that we are delivering a standard of health service delivery that is similar to that outside the prison setting," he said.
The regulations meant dental services needed to be provided by a registered dental practitioner, and that they need to be provided based on acute need.
"That can be defined as acute need based on pain relief, or acute need based on any kind of life limiting dental concern," Storey said
"The majority of our sites have on-site dental suites."
Of New Zealand's 10,075 prisoners, 189 received dental services each week according to an audit from November 2024.
However, former prisoner and co-president of the Howard League for Penal Reform in Canterbury, Cosmo Jeffrey, said the service needed to be improved.
"There definitely is a lack of appropriate service," he said.
"I think if the bean-counters did their homework, it would probably cheaper in the long run to give people even once a year check up in jail."
He had concerns about the future of the service.
"In this day and age when money means everything and budgets have to be trimmed back all the time, then it's going to get worse before it gets better, that's for sure."
Jeffrey said one of the recurring issues he's heard of from those in prisons in his area was getting access to dental care and treatment.
Grierson said the patients she treats appreciated her work.
"It's a huge impact when they come in with a fat, swollen face, with a very sore tooth, and we can actually deliver care that gives them relief, and they're very grateful," she said.
"It's a fun job, I wouldn't be in it for nearly 10 years if I didn't enjoy it."
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