EDITORIAL
Kane'ohe Hospital: Is its cloud finally lifting?

We couldn't be more pleased to see Magistrate Kevin Chang's recommendation that it's time to end 13 years of federal oversight of the only state-run mental institution in Hawai'i.

State officials, says Chang, have made "substantial progress and dramatic change" at the hospital, with patients now being treated in "a different and successful way."

That's a dramatic change from 1991, when an inspection found a snakepit, dangerous to its patients, dangerous to its staff.

But is it time for the feds to relinquish oversight? The last word will come from Chief U.S. District Judge David Ezra, and frankly we hope he proves very hard to please.

That's because once the feds let go of the hospital, it might take years to pull it back if the state's commitment to quality care slips once again.

Lest anyone forget, the feds didn't journey to sunny Hawai'i to confer honors on the folks running the hospital. They were here because local citizens despaired of state officials ever correcting the appalling conditions they had encountered.

In 1999, an angry Judge Ezra warned state lawmakers that if they didn't start spending enough on the long-troubled hospital, he'd start seizing state assets and selling them to raise the money.

We hope it's time to end this shameful chapter of Hawai'i history. But let's be sure.