|
News Stories
Government Linda Lingle Comments of West
Maui Hospital Need
(Story exerpt from Maui News)
HONOLULU.......During her session with reporters
from the Neighbor Islands, (Governor Linda) Lingle also weighed
in on plans for a second hospital on Maui although she did not indicate
that she favored either of two competing proposals.
“I think additional facilities are important
on Maui,” she said. “The population is growing.” She had met with
groups proposing a West Maui hospital to discuss their plans, as
well as with Sen. Rosalyn Baker, whose district includes West Maui
and South Maui and who chairs the Senate Health Committee.
The West Maui Taxpayers Foundation is sponsoring
a long-standing proposal for a full-service, acute-care hospital,
with a 15-acre site near the Lahaina Civic Center. Maui Memorial
Medical Center, with a 15-acre site provided by Maui Land & Pineapple
Co. at Mahinahina, announced earlier this year it is planning an
urgent/emergency-care center with long-term care beds that could
be expanded into an acute-care hospital.
Lingle said she wanted to see the different
groups, each of which has a different idea of the best solution
to West Maui’s health care needs, reach a consensus. “Everyone knows
West Maui needs more health care, but in what form?” she said.
Lingle said she responded to the West Maui
need by taking steps to divert state funds from a long-term care
facility in Kulamalu to one in Lahaina. “Clearly the need was in
West Maui,” she said. She said legislators have indicated support
of the funding move, although for a lesser amount than she originally
had recommended. Lingle said the move showed why she needed the
power to decide when to release funds and when to save them for
another purpose.
“An appropriation being made doesn’t make
it right,” she said. In this case, the need for long-term care was
greater in West Maui than in Kula, she said. “I didn’t get a call
from anybody about ’Why did you take it and give it to West Maui.’”
But later, Democratic Sen. Colleen Hanabusa had a different take.
She said it was an ongoing concern in the Legislature when funds
allocated by legislators are held up in the Governor’s Office. “What
we don’t want to see is . . . where we have all this money appropriated
for programs and they don’t do anything,” she said.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 2005 The Maui News.
.
Main
Page
|
