In the rural areas of Kaua’i, some economically-disadvantaged residents can’t find rides to vital medical appointments. Other Kauaians, including senior citizens who live alone, also can’t get access to health referral services. These are shortcomings the state Hawai’i Rural Health
In the rural areas of Kaua’i, some economically-disadvantaged residents can’t find rides to vital medical appointments.
Other Kauaians, including senior citizens who live alone, also can’t get access to health referral services.
These are shortcomings the state Hawai’i Rural Health Association and the state Department of Health hope to address through a proposal to improve healthcare services statewide.
The state agency and the association have scheduled a public forum for Tuesday at Queen Liliuokalani Childrens’ Center in Lihu’e from 4 to 7 p.m. to solicit comments for the statewide comprehensive rural health plan.
The plan’s focus is to identify the healthcare needs of residents and to match those needs with medical resources and facilities in their communities, said Stephen Jiang, a planner and grant writer for the Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility Program.
The healthcare plan is tied to the larger Medicare program, a federal effort to improve the viability of small, rural hospitals in the nation, including Kaua’i Veterans Memorial Hospital, Jiang said.
In all, the Hawai’i Rural Health Association and the state Office of Rural Health, which operates under the auspices of the health department, will hold 15 meetings across the state for discussions of the plan.
Mary Jo Sweeney, president of the association, welcomed the collaborative effort. She called it “a community-up process rather than the typical top-down process that communities have had imposed upon them in the past.”
Val Yin, director of the Office of Rural Health, said she believes the healthcare plan “will act as a unified voice of Hawai’i’s rural communities.”
Work on the plan started a year ago. “We are now going to the communities directly and are having people tell us what their priorities are,” Jiang said, adding the plan could be completed as early as December.
The rural health associations on Kaua’i, Oahu, Maui and Big Island, and other organizations can use the plan as justification for government and private grants to carry out the goals of the plan, Jiang said.
Each county rural health association will convene the public meetings on the polan. Roy Nishida, Governor Ben Cayetano’s liaison on Kaua’i, is the president of the Kaua’i association.
Additional information is available from Sweeney at (808) 241-3427, or Kirk Lange or Jiang (808) 586-4188.
Staff writer Lester Chang can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) and mailto:lchang@pulitzer.net
