Agencies should negotiate to serve North Hawaii
So the forces of greed have apparently trumped (sorry about the use of that word, but oddly appropriate here) in the break down of contract negotiations between Kaiser Permanente and Queen’s Medical System that I read about in Tuesday’s paper.
While I know zero about the substance of those negotiations, I can only assume that neither side was willing to bend enough to make the deal financially attractive to the other. This might be merely a monetary issue for the negotiating parties, a hiccup in their profits, but it’s a catastrophe for Kaiser members and for health care access in North Hawaii. This means that the nearest full service Kaiser-participating hospital for residents of North Kohala where I live is, at best, and hour and a half away (granted, there is the very small six-bed medical/22-bed long-term care Kohala Hospital, but really, that is really more of a nursing facility and ER, without specialist availability, and is certainly unequipped to handle high volume or complex medical needs).
What is Kaiser thinking?! Are they writing off the book of business that lives in Waimea, Honakaa, Hawi, Waikoloa? They certainly are making a good argument for us all to go elsewhere.
What is Queen’s thinking?! Are they writing off their long-held mission of caring for the health care needs of the community? I can only assume that money, the lifeblood of the health care industry, got in the way of their respective better natures.
Get back to the table and come up with a workable solution that serves the needs of North Hawaii. It’s called negotiation, where each side gives a little to get a little; it’s not a game of chicken. Kaiser members in North Hawaii deserve better.
Dennis Boyd
Hawi
Not just old white men
Old white men are not the only ones trying to control the reproduction process of women as Mark Van Pernis said in his editorial letter.
The governor of Alabama is a woman, Kay Ellen Ivey, and she is the one that signed the near-total anti-abortion law for Alabama.
Teresa Tagon
Keauhou