Posted on: Thursday, December 16, 2004

Letters to the Editor

E-Express is empty for lack of publicity

The main reason the "E" bus is empty is that people don't know where it goes. People don't realize it stops at Ala Moana Center and the Ward complex before heading downtown.

As I ride by in the 'ewa direction, I see tons of people crowding the buses to go to Ala Moana Center, but they don't get on the E bus.

With most new routes, there are signs at the bus stops explaining the new bus. That wasn't done with the E bus. Most also don't understand what the new-style bus sign means. I've talked to lots of people who know nothing about it, and many are local citizens. Otherwise, why would the 8, 19 and 20 buses be so crowded? At the most, the 8 needs to be a bigger bus.

How can it be taking away business from private buses if it's empty? Besides, with the Ward complex building up, I'm sure they will get more business.

I've also noted that in stores and places that have brochures of the different bus routes, the bus company hasn't put the one for the E bus in there with the other ones.

Korean Care Home celebrating holidays

The Korean Care Home was founded by the first generation of immigrants to Hawai'i in 1929 in order to care for elderly people who did not have family. Since then, the home has served the community's elderly — not only Koreans but also other ethnic groups. Currently, the home takes care of 31 residents whose ages range from the 70s to the 90s.

Over the years, the home has enjoyed tremendous volunteer support from the Korean community. Volunteers range from elementary school kids to senior citizen groups. Some parents bring their children to volunteer activities to share the experience of caring. They clean the yards, sing and dance for the residents, play games or talk stories with them. These activities are year-round.

As the holiday season approaches, residents enjoy the many visitors, gifts and entertainment.

The efforts of Korean Care Home's many volunteers make this holiday even more enjoyable. Residents, family, friends and neighbors have been invited to join the annual holiday party this Saturday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

The Korean American Coalition will bring gifts for the residents, Yummy Korean Barbecue will provide a delicious lunch, and Dalton Tanonaka with his band Flashback has volunteered to entertain with their music.

The food, gifts, music and most of all the good will make this annual holiday party special and meaningful. The good will that we want to share will heighten the holiday spirit around the Korean Care Home.

Shame on Tanonaka for missed-vote attack

In yesterday's letter "Abercrombie missed key intelligence vote," former candidate Dalton Tanonaka wrote, "I don't mean to come across as a sore loser, but in the first significant vote in Congress following his re-election, where was Neil Abercrombie?" He notes that the vote was held on Dec. 7 and that Abercrombie was not there.

I found the answer in the paper just two pages later, where there was a large box on the obituaries page noting that Abercrombie's mother passed away on Dec. 4.

The answer to "Where was Neil?" becomes pretty darned obvious. If Tanonaka (and also the creator of the Web site he mentions, who appears to be a disgruntled former employee of Abercrombie) had bothered to simply pick up the phone and call Abercrombie's office, they would have known where he was. Shame on them.

Perhaps this glaring lack of extremely basic research skills is why Tanonaka lost the election.

My sympathies to Abercrombie on the loss of his mother.

So much for dentists' 'emergency' numbers

Recently, my 5-year-old nephew woke up in the middle of the night with a swollen face and complaining of a toothache. It was obviously a severe infection. He was running a fairly high temperature.

I immediately started calling all of the phone numbers listed under dentists. I knew that no office would be open at that hour. I also knew that most doctor offices have an emergency contact number on the answering machine. Sure enough, right away they were giving the emergency contact information.

I called every dentist in the Windward O'ahu yellow pages, most giving an emergency contact phone number. How many people answered the phone? None. So they were screening their calls. How many callbacks that night? Not one. It has been three days since I made over 30 calls that night. How many returned my messages out of 20-something that I left? Well, let me tell you, I am still waiting for one. Thank all of you very much.

In case any of you are wondering how it turned out, we made a visit to the emergency room at Castle Medical Center even though I called ahead with the problem and they advised me to call a dentist as they were not equipped to handle a dental emergency.

Please fix the roads

The $8 million project to shave off a hilltop at Castle Junction has certainly changed the landscape in that area — it's just tough to fully appreciate the new vistas as one labors to avoid all the potholes on the highways leading to and from the intersection. To the state of Hawai'i and the City & County of Ho-nolulu: Please fix our roads!

Biennium phone book

I walked by a huge stack of last year's phone books this a.m. What a waste! Here's an idea: Why not save lots of dollars by issuing a new phone book every other year? (Savings for us as subscribers as well as for the telephone company.) If it seems necessary, issue names and numbers to be added or deleted in a small addendum each year.

Heads should roll for Manoa flooding

As a longtime resident of O'ahu before moving to the Big Island, I have in my memory the great Keapuka flood in Kane'ohe that inundated an entire subdivision due to large pipes under the highway being blocked by trees and debris. We then had the 1987 Haha'ione flood for similar reasons. Google, addressed by these two flood names, has details of wringing of hands and finger-pointing but ultimately no blame.

Fast forward to now, 2004, we have computer models, detailed hydrology on all stream systems, and most of all, government departments that are responsible. We have $100 million in losses, and the loss of history of our Islands in the "catastrophic" loss at the university library. I have not seen any discussion in your paper of criminal responsibility, nor the resignation offered of a single person.

Perhaps we should let state Auditor Marion Higa loose on establishing why we pay taxes for public services, which with ample previous examples, we are still unable to mitigate predictable disasters. The Keapuka records are full of the same trees and the same household trash dumped into the same flood channels that are currently being blamed in Manoa.

I am sure if someone who knows the names investigates these very records, they will find the same public officials involved. Someone needs to spend time in jail for Manoa; it was totally preventable based on recent experience. Who was asleep at the wheel?

Pastors David and Juanita have earned 'retirement'

On Nov. 26, members and friends of the Hawaii Church for the Deaf held a potluck celebration honoring Pastors David and Juanita Schiewek on their "retirement" after 35 years of faithful service helping the deaf community of Hawai'i.

I say "retirement" with tongue in cheek because although Pastor Sam will now be responsible for our church, I'm sure Pastors David and Juanita will still spend countless hours helping Pastor Sam with the church, picking up the deaf all over this island for Sunday services, deaf camp, weekday services, etc. In addition, as they have been doing for 35 years, they help any hearing-impaired person in trouble who needs counseling or any type of assistance, including a temporary haven to stay in time of need.

I've known David and Juanita for 25 years so I've seen them do much for the deaf community, including feeding people or taking them in for a few days or weeks at a time. Whenever the state had an emergency with a deaf child with no place to put him or her, they would call the Schieweks. There are deaf adults today who owe their lives to the Schieweks, who took them in when nobody else would and raised them as 'ohana. In addition to raising their own two daughters, and helping deaf kids too, they also raised two abandoned multi-disabled little girls for nearly 20 years. I know how difficult it was for them, but they did it with aloha anyway.

I love and appreciate the Schieweks because they have done so much to help me, especially in the late '70s and early '80s when I was a frustrated, recently deafened adult. There were times when they took me in because I was frustrated and angry at the whole hearing world. They fed me, listened to my ranting and raving, counseled and prayed with me. They helped me to understand and adjust to my deafness.

Today I have a great happy life with a beautiful wife. I owe my life to David and Juanita and want to thank them from the bottom of my heart for their love and friendship. They are no doubt two beautiful, caring, loving human beings.

Medical appeal must be salvaged

I was deeply saddened to learn that the Hawai'i Supreme Court had struck down, as being in conflict with federal law, a provision of Hawai'i's Patient Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. That provision would give patients whose request for medical treatment has been denied by a health insurer a quick and relatively inexpensive appeal before a three-member panel consisting of the insurance commissioner or his delegate, a physician and a representative of the health plan.

The consequences of the court's opinion will be to force patients with private-sector employee health plans (ERISA plans), if they want to contest a health insurer's negative decision, to bring an expensive lawsuit in state or federal court. Such denials, however, often involve relatively small amounts of money even when they seriously harm a patient.

Under ERISA, patients can only recover the monetary value of the benefit — the cost of a denied surgery or MRI, for example — and may (or may not) recover lawyers' fees and costs. But no compensatory or punitive damages are allowed in these proceedings no matter how seriously the patient is harmed.

Because lawsuits, as compared with the current external review, are more formal and more cumbersome, less user-friendly, without important time limits where there is need for swift resolution, and less protective of patient privacy, these suits are less likely to be brought. Patients may opt to accept the denial of treatment even where their case is strong and where the denial of treatment has caused them great harm.

Undoubtedly, the Supreme Court's opinion is well-reasoned. But because this case is governed by ERISA, an extraordinarily murky and confusing federal law, there are arguably equal or even stronger legal reasons that would support a contrary result more helpful to Hawai'i patients and more consistent with sound public policy.

These reasons have been set forth in motions for reconsideration of the decision, filed by an aggrieved patient and by Hawai'i's attorney general. If the Supreme Court doesn't take this excellent opportunity to reverse its decision, the Hawai'i Legislature should immediately undertake the passage of a new law for external review of treatment denials that will pass muster under our Supreme Court's view of ERISA.