DATE: 12/6/2007
(Update: There is a response and another update at the end of this portion of the newsletter. Very interesting...)
Aloha Team AIHM,
A million dollars is a whole lot of our taxpayer money. So when a million dollars is ‘lost in the system’ somewhere, it really needs to be accounted for. So, where is it? Why can’t we get answers? And why are the usual suspects being very, very
quite about it? And if our legislature just legislates a million dollars this way or that, with no accountability, how about they legislate a million dollars for AIHM? We could use if for the lawyer we need to hire so we can sue the state.
You see, dear readers, our story begins about 2 ½ to 3 years ago, when the West Maui Health Alliance (WMHA) went to see the governor. They needed start up money to fund an urgent care.
(For those readers who never stepped foot on West Maui, this is because if you are sick or injured on the West Side, you are in big trouble – there is no hospital and you cannot get to MMMC easily or quickly. This is because we have a CON –
Certificate of Need, which the Oahu hospitals and HHSC uses to stop us from having a hospital on the west side, so we needed an urgent care clinic until we can abolish the CON.)
The governor understood their plight, and sent Maria Weber, president of the WMHA to go see Georgina Kawamura, the director of the state Department of Budget and Finance.
http://starbulletin.com/2006/05/31/news/story14.html
Excerpt from above link:
“the state Legislature has passed an appropriation of $1 million to develop a plan to establish an emergency facility in west Maui.”
You can see, the legislature thought that West Maui healthcare should be looked at. They must have been serious, as they appropriated $1,000,000.00 to look at it.
However, next it gets kind of fuzzy, as it does in Hawaii when it concerns healthcare.
Apparently, the money had been given, the day before Maria Webber went, to Tom Driskill, JR. President and Chief Executive Officer of HHSC (Hawaiian Healthcare Systems Corporation). You remember them – they run the government hospital system and
spent a lot of money fighting Malulani. Money paid to them by our taxes? These are the people who do not want any private hospitals on Maui. They want all the income from Maui Memorial to be sucked out of it and given to them, so they can use it to
run the whole government system on all islands. Funny, isn’t it, how the wolf gets the sheeps money?
The rumor is, that at some point, Wes Lo put in a release request for the funds. Now why the money should be in the governments’ hands anyway, is beyond AIHM. We think the government does nothing but make things worse with regards to healthcare.
This was supposed to be a top priority to help with the wait list problem. It should have gone to the West Maui Health Alliance steering committee.
(Wait list problem = on any given day there are ~41 ‘waitlisted’ patients in Maui Memorial. These are patients who no longer need an acute care hospital bed, but do need a place to go. 231 beds in MMMC – 41 beds = 190 beds available for the
entire island of Maui. MMMC can’t just dump these patients on the street – although a mainland Kaiser hospital was doing just that with their waitlisted patients according to a recent 60 Minutes story: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/17/60minutes/main2823079.shtml
(nice). Perhaps we can send these patients to Oahu hospitals?
So these beds at MMMC are not available for you and I if we get sick. To those AIHM members who wrote to me to tell me that they were turned away from the MMC ER the other day – this is why. If you cannot move patients out of the ER, because there
are patients in those hospital beds who have no where to go, and the beds are therefore full. There are no beds. So MMMC has to stop taking care of the new ER patients. You can always go to the other hospital ER’s on Maui. Oh! My mistake! THERE ARE
NO OTHER ER’S ON MAUI. Guess you could go to your place of worship and pray that you do not die? I was told the other day there were 55 waitlisted patients.) Odd, isn’t it? MMMC can’t take care of you, but they don’t want another hospital
coming to Maui either. Greed, I say.
The purpose of the missing million dollars was specifially for design and planning for long term care and a medical facility for West Maui. As the road to hell is paved with good intentions, this is not what actually happened. Those who are surprised
by this can refer to www.AIHM-Maui.org for some remedial reading.
Now the West Maui Health Alliance has inquired about the whereabouts of this missing million dollars. The Maui Healthcare Initiative Task Force sent an inquiry to Wes Lo, CEO of Maui Memorial Medical Center. They are awaiting a response. Heck,
everyone has been awaiting a response since the initial disbursement of funds years ago. The good people of Maui are instead being treated like mushrooms, as usual. Kept in the dark and fed manure…
Supposedly, there are rumors that $350K was spend for planning. AIHM would love to see the plans. Supposedly, $650 was for design. Does anyone know where the designs are or if our three senators will allow the designs to go ahead if there are
actually designs??? (When pigs fly..)
So if it were not illegal to gamble in Hawaii, I would like to bet someone that in 5 years, we will still be saying “Where is the Million Dollars?”. It is Christmas and I must finish my shopping, so I need my portion of this million dollars back
now.
Is there a stellar local news reporter who would like to dig a bit further into this? If not, maybe “60 Minutes” or “Time” magazine would like to come over and have much fun with this disaster of healthcare rationing and corruption in Hawaii?
Perhaps a police detective or the FBI should be taking a closer look at this?
Anyone who has the answers to this mystery, please contact us so we can let our readers know where the money went.
Aloha,
Jan
votevotevotevotevotevotevotevotevote
Subject: More on the Coconut Wireless presents the Mystery of the Missing
Million Dollars
Aloha Team AIHM,
Below is a response from Maria Weber, who has some info to add to the “Mystery of the Missing Million Dollars”. Please note, she adds a date of October 5, 2005, of an email she received from Georgina Kawamura.
Maria also adds the actual bill number. It was to be for the long term care patients currently clogging up our only hospital. Maria is still waiting for an answer also. We will hope that we receive an explanation soon.
Mahalo, Maria!
Aloha,
jan
Dear Jan,
Thank you very much for your latest on the "Mystery of the One Million Dollars". If I may I would like to set the record straight on behalf of WMHA.
I went, along with some members of my Board, to talk with Governor Lingle and to inform her that we wanted to get some money as start up funds to start up an After Hour Urgent Care Center here in West Maui.
She recommended that we get an appointment to see Georgina Kawamura, State Director of Budget and Finance.
And so we did.
I now would like to quote from an email that Georgina sent to me on October 5, 2005.
"The Legislature provided $1.0 million for the West Maui Medical Facilities. ($350,000 for planning and $650,000 for design) via the Budget Act.This is the only appropriation for a West Maui facility. There is no other appropriation.
Maui memorial has submitted to its corporate offices (HHSC) a request to release the $1.0 million and that the paperwork is moving in Honolulu.A formal request to release funds will soon be coming to Budget and Finance and subsequently, the Governor.
I believe that HHSC has suggested that the West Maui Health Alliance and others could directly participate as members of a steering committee for the planning and design, once the $1.0 is released. We will encourage them to do that."
Georgina Kawamura also gave me a report that says:
10 DISTRICT WEST MAUI MEDICAL CLINIC
The information below was found in the budget bill HB100 CD1, which shows a $1,000,000 appropriation for the plans and design for a long-term care facility in West Maui. No construction funds for this facility have been allocated yet.
Plans and design for long-term care facilities, ancillary support building and medical clinic in West Maui.
PLANS: $350,000
DESIGN: $ 650,000
The Task Force has reported that Wes LO has encumbered $300,000 out of the $1.0 million. $285,000 has been spent for planning.
At our next to last WMHA Board meeting a Board member enquired what had happened to those $1.0 million dollars. WMHA would like to know so that they can better serve the West Maui Community.
I , as President of WMHA then turned to a member of the Task Force requesting an answer to "What has Wes Lo done with those $1.0 million dollars."
I an still waiting for an answer.
Yours truly, Maria.
Maria Weber
President
West Maui Health Alliance
ANOTHER Update as of 12/11/07: Click Here
VOTEVOTEVOTEVOTEVOTEVOTEVOTEVOTEVOTEVOTEVOTEVOTEVOTEVOTE
Jan Shields L.V.T., B.S.N., R.N.C.
Association for Improved Healthcare on Maui
P.O. Box 11420
Lahaina, Maui, HI 96761-6420
Email:
Information@AIHM-Maui.org
Cell: 808-298-8886
Fax: 808-573-5468