Editorial
Hospital in denial about patient escapes

The difficulty, perhaps, is terminology. Patients at Kane'ohe State Hospital may have criminal histories, but because of their mental illness they are confined there for treatment, not punishment.

Because they're patients, not prisoners, it means that when they hop the fence and disappear they're not escaping, but "eloping."

There's nothing wrong with this refined jargon as long as it doesn't interfere with the hospital doing its job. That is, what they do there is all about treatment, not about punishment.

Fine. So keep the patients there and treat them.

The hospital's leadership is in denial about its responsibility to provide security. Patients with criminal histories must be secured. It's abundantly clear from the number of recent "elopements" that the hospital isn't doing its job.

That must change.