COM 0376.013 2006-2008 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Dear Council members, First, I want to say thanks for allowing the health care professionals and patients who are affected by this rezoning request to share additional information that the Council needs to concern carefully. I'm sorry we didn't provide this information earlier in this process. I feel like I should also apologize to some of our neighbors who have files complaints about the medical clinics in the Punahele area. We could have done a betterjob of addressing some of their concerns in the past. The County Council doesn't need me to have tell them there is a crisis in health care access in Hawaii. You can't pick up the paper or speak to a neighbor, without hearing how hard it is to find a primary care doctor. Patient care is suffering because of the lack of orthopedic doctors, general surgeons, internists, OBGYN and women's health specialists. In short, patients are having difficulty seeing the very type of health care providers who practice at the Punahele Professional Building at 83 Pu'uhonu Place. If any more OB doctors stop making deliveries on the Big Island, we'll have to train our kids to deliver babies when they go to law school. "Well, there's a shortage of doctors everywhere in the U.S. ,who cares? What's the big deal?" The answer, of course, is that we live on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Patients cannot get in their car and drive to the next town or across the state border to find care elsewhere. If patients can't see their doctor in Hilo, they often don't see anybody. I'm a specialist in the detection and diagnosis of breast cancer. I co-wrote cq the breast cancer practice guidelines which were published by the Hawaii ~ Department of Health and founder the Hawaii Breast Society. Our ~ mammography clinic should be screening about 2 to 3 thousand more East Hawaii patients each year than we are now. We can save 2 or 3 more ~ ~ d women annually if these patients have access to our mammography v