Bill HB 1518 is a perfect example, of government’s ability to use their positions for personal agendas, and stifling its citizens.
For six months we have been communicating with West Hawaii Today about our personal situation that has generated this bill.
One of the few tools a citizen has, to ensure a response from government agencies, is the Uniform Information Practices Act (records requests). When a representative in the State House informs you she does not keep email communications and you make a records request to inspect personal records maintained by that representative, receiving a “Notice to Requestor” with a bill of $3,000, obviously stifles that inspection.
When you have a confirmed appointment to inspect records at the Department of Health, regarding the lack of timely state inspections of ambulatory surgery centers throughout the state and Kohala Hospital and you fly over to Oahu, rent a car and travel to Kapolei, only to be denied the right to inspect records, the UIPA/OIP is supposed to protect your rights. Not so much.
This bill pretends to be protecting agencies from abuse and to save them time, but in fact, it is only trying to stifle two Kona citizens and take away the last tool they have for government transparency. Brian Black, of the Civil Beat Center for Law in the Public Interest, testified that this bill would create more work for the agencies and the OIP.
As Hawaii Health Systems Corp. testified, this started in 2013. However, when you file a complaint against a medical facility, funded by the state of Hawaii, for billing your Medicare Advantage insurance company for a procedure the doctor never performed, the outcome is that you are denied access to that medical facility. If you approach the OIP for an opinion to try to help remedy that injustice and it takes the OIP over three years to respond to that opinion because of their backlog, again, you are targeted as the problem.
Here’s the kicker. We have tried to request that bills be introduced for years, that include and help all citizens in the state, for one example the video-recording of surgical procedures when the patient is rendered unconscious, but they kicked it to the curb. But ironically, this bill will pass, just for us. Heckuva way to get a bill passed.
Tom and Christine Russi are residents of Kailua-Kona.