Kids removed from Puna home
By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Big Island Bureau
HILO, Hawai'i — Child Welfare Services has removed five children from a Puna home after a 10-year-old girl who lived there suffered such severe injuries that she remains hospitalized in critical condition.
Police said the girl's mother left her with a couple in the rural 'Ainaloa Estates subdivision for about three months before the child was hospitalized.
On Feb. 7, the couple called an ambulance, and a fire department rescue crew took the girl to Hilo Medical Center with what police described as "festering head and body wounds." After seeing her injuries, hospital staff called police.
Police have not identified the girl, her mother or the couple, who are acquaintances of the mother.
Child Welfare Services took custody of the injured girl, whom police said suffered "severe child abuse." Five other children who lived in the 'Ainaloa home also were removed and placed in foster care, said Derick Dahilig, public information officer for the state Department of Human Services.
Police said the girl was flown to Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children, and Dahilig said she remained in "very critical condition" yesterday.
The five children who had been living in the same home showed no obvious signs of physical abuse, Dahilig said.
Police Capt. Chad Fukui, commander of the Hawai'i County Police Department's Criminal Investigation Division, said police are working with doctors to determine what caused the girl's wounds and when she was injured.
He said police have not been able to interview her to find out what happened.
"She hasn't been able to tell us anything," Fukui said. "It's obvious that proper medical attention wasn't given to the child, which caused her medical condition to worsen."
He said police have located the mother. There have been no arrests in the case.
Police first issued a public statement about the case Tuesday, a week after the girl was hospitalized. Fukui said police did not release any information earlier because the girl initially was listed in guarded condition, and authorities did not realize she had suffered life-threatening injuries.
Child Welfare Services workers have expressed concern in recent years about the growing number of child abuse and neglect cases in East Hawai'i, which includes the high-poverty area of Puna, where drugs are also a community scourge.
The agency reported in 2003 that it was removing an average of more than one child a day from homes in the eastern half of the Big Island, with workers reporting a vast majority of those cases involved crystal methamphetamine use by adults in those households.
Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 935-3916.
