Understanding that if cuts to the Hawaii Health Systems Corporation budget are not restored by the state Legislature that people on both sides of Kaua‘i will suffer, members of the Kauai Veterans Memorial Hospital Charitable Foundation have begun a petition drive to implore lawmakers to restore the cuts.
The petitions will be faxed to legislators this Sunday, March 28, so lawmakers will see them first thing Monday morning, petition-drive organizers said.
Members of the state House Finance Committee slashed $11.2 million from HHSC’s request for $31.2 million for the fiscal year beginning July 1, with committee leaders saying that the system has enough funds to continue operating even with the cuts.
The HHSC runs KVMH at West Kauai Medical Center in Waimea, and Mahelona Medical Center in Kapa‘a.
If full funding is not restored, leaders of the community hospital system will have to begin cutting services, a KVMH Charitable Foundation spokesperson said.
“Are we the straw that breaks the camel’s back, the budget buster?” the petition asks.
The HHSC budget of $31.2 million is 0.867 percent of the state’s $3.6-billion supplemental budget for fiscal 2004-05, and the HHSC hospitals serve around 25 percent of Hawai‘i’s population.
The $11.2-million cut equates to about 0.3 percent of the supplemental budget approved by the full House and now under consideration in the state Senate.
The $31.2 million will ensure that the hospitals continue to provide current levels of emergency and acute medical services, long-term care and other services, the petition states.
The budget request will ensure retention of a skilled workforce of 3,000 taxpayers, the petition continues.
“Let our legislators know that our hospitals are a top priority, not an afterthought,” the petition concludes.
The Senate Ways and Means Committee has a public hearing on the supplemental budget bill on Tuesday, March 30, and state Sen. Gary Hooser, D-Kaua‘i-Ni‘ihau, sits on that committee.
While full funding isn’t likely to be restored by the Senate committee, Hooser and senators from Maui have been working together to lessen the cut imposed by the House Finance Committee, he said.
But there is resistance at the committee level.
“The Ways and Means staff insists HHSC has sufficient funding with the cuts, so it will be up to the hospital system to prove otherwise,” said Hooser.
“There is a clear dispute of facts regarding the condition of the (HHSC) budget,” he said.
“But I’m doing my best to support the funding because I know how important it is to the Westside,” said Hooser. He is working with Maui senators to see that the Senate version of the supplemental budget includes more than the $20 million for HHSC the House approved, he added.
Without the push of Hooser and senators from Maui, though, it would have been likely that the Senate version of the budget would have been approved without any increase to the House-approved figure for HHSC, Hooser said.
The final funding amount will likely be finalized in a joint House-Senate conference committee near the end of the session.
Associate Editor Paul C. Curtis may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net.
