This is an open letter to Mayor Billy Kenoi, Gov. David Ige, Hawaii Department of Health, Hilo Medical Center and legislators.
This is an open letter to Mayor Billy Kenoi, Gov. David Ige, Hawaii Department of Health, Hilo Medical Center and legislators.
I have a good friend who started getting really bad headaches a month or more ago, and had to go to the emergency room because of the severity of headaches and she was treated (for something?) and sent home. This happened several more times. This woman is a registered nurse, she lives in Kapoho and is a vegan, but she has only lived here a few years. Finally, on the last visit, they decided to check her for rat lung. Bingo. Except for she suffered excruciating pain unnecessarily for that last month when she should have been checked for rat lung on her first visit, and would have been treated since then.
I am under the impression from talking to various people that the University of Hawaii rat lung study guys who were sitting outside Clinical Labs in Pahoa for the last few months collecting blood samples trying to figure out what percentage of the population has or had rat lung, to a trusted friend who says when you walk into the state Department of Health office in Hilo, you find all sorts of propaganda about malaria and other diseases in other countries, but nothing about rat lung in Puna. Maybe they don’t want to scare the tourists? DOH and Hilo Medical Center told me the numbers are too low for it to be a real epidemic. I call bull, because when you compare the numbers of people in Puna and number of rat lung sufferers it is epidemic for Puna. I say Puna lives matter.
When I called the DOH to ask about their rat lung policy with the hospital they said the emergency room doctors have such a high turnover rate, and also they are not from Hawaii and they just don’t know about rat lung. Can you believe that? I called the hospital public relations number, because I couldn’t find a number for the emergency room physicians. A great nurse named Steve called me back, we talked for quite awhile, and he has promised me he will speak to the emergency room board of directors about educating the emergency room doctors that when someone comes in from Puna with all the classic symptoms of rat lung that the hospital immediately questions them and then tests them for it. You don’t just run some tests, give them some pain killers and send them home, and then let them come back three or four times before you do anything proactive about rat lung. Somehow it always gets turned around, and we the suffering residents are called the lame ones for living is substandard conditions and not washing and cooking our food.
It’s time for the state and County of Hawaii to come out of the closet and admit there is a serious problem in Puna with rat lung disease. Don’t just leave it to UH and the residents to suffer until we start screaming. It is now time for the state and County of Hawaii to take responsibility for all the substandard subdivisions they permitted all over this island with no running water. Those in power were so busy laughing and making speculative millions they forgot that us poorer human beings (or those who seek alternative to mainstream U.S. culture) have been buying and living here for decades. We wouldn’t trade it for all the gold in China.
The state and county need to provide water spigots in every catchment subdivision now. You have the pipes running on the highways and fire hydrants, you can have water spigots. Drill some wells. Stop being greedy. There are myriads of people who live in the bushes and try and catch water in whatever they can. They may be poor veterans or have mental illness, or other families barely surviving. It’s too hard to expect people to haul enough water to be super hygienic. Many have no vehicles, and can’t carry water for miles and miles. Or they are old and have no support system.
It is now time for the state and County of Hawaii to start rectifying the wrongs still being perpetrated daily in certain districts. Perhaps they can go after these individuals who knowingly made millions perpetrating and permitting substandard subdivisions without laying pipe or drilling water wells for the number of lots permitted. We know who they were, they were all Hawaii government legislators, attorneys, judges, planners, council reps, union reps, big landowners and real estate agents involved in Hawaii planning from the beginning of statehood. I suggest everyone read “Land and Power in Hawaii,” especially the chapter “Subdividing Hawaii’s Lava Fields,” and do it soon.
Of course, many of those original folks are dead now, but I think the current government is absolutely responsible for the knowing continuation of wrongs of its past members’ actions when they currently violate basic civil rights of impacted human beings. Whatever the greedy reasons for allowing these subdivisions without providing potable water on the Big Island were and still are, you are all now on notice that you need to be responsible for your actions, and please begin remedying immediately.
Sara Steiner is a resident of Pahoa.
Viewpoint articles are the opinion of the writer and not necessarily the opinion of West Hawaii Today.