KEALAKEKUA — As the principal of Konawaena Elementary School, Claire Yoshida knows the barriers South Kona’s communities face when it comes to health care.
Many of the school’s students and families are low-income, Yoshida said, and some of them may lack access to services and providers.
“So in order for children to come to school and really do their best every day, they need to be healthy,” she said. “They need to have their vision checked so that they can learn; they need to have their hearing checked so that they can learn.”
It makes events like the fourth annual South Kona Community Health Fair all the more important for the communities in this district, where limitations like lack of transportation could otherwise mean residents go without care.
The health fair held Saturday at Konawaena Elementary School’s cafeteria brought together 38 nonprofits, government agencies and health providers to give area residents a chance to see what services are available to them in the community. The event was organized by the Lions Club of Kona and the West Hawaii Community Health Center.
Exhibitors spanned a wide array of services fair attendees might find useful. In addition to health providers, other exhibitors included legal aid, foster care services, police and much more.
Some exhibitors also offered no-cost screenings — oral health, vision and hearing among them — that could give residents a better, clearer idea of what’s going on with their health.
Yoshida said the chance for families to have their kids’ hearing and vision checked is crucial, giving an example of a student she once had who was hard of hearing. That affected the boy’s behavior, she said, because he wasn’t able to hear directions.
Dr. Matthew Stewart, a general dentist with West Hawaii Community Health Center, was among the center’s oral health staff helping provide dental screenings for patients while also helping them find providers, identify any emergency needs and help with any necessary paperwork or applications for QUEST, which gives low-income adults and children access to health coverage.
In South Kona, he said, the need for accessible care is a big one. Many adults they see, he said, haven’t been to a dentist in years, either because of an inability to pay or some other reason.
In just the first half-hour of the fair, Stewart said, they had already identified a number of emergency dental needs in people they had screened.
Their efforts were also focused on educating fair attendees about oral health and preventative measures they should be taking. In dentistry, he noted, preventative care is key.
“If we can teach healthy habits from a young age for the whole family, we would have a lot less emergency needs and drastic things down the road,” Stewart said.
Outside the cafeteria, Project Vision Hawaii’s Vision Van offered near-and-far vision screenings and retinal imaging.
Data manager Moriah Mathson said those retinal images are sent to a volunteer eye doctor on Oahu, who evaluates them and sends the results back, which are then mailed to the patient.
Mathson said the services are important as a way to potentially catch any vision issues, noting that some eye diseases can lead to blindness if they go untreated.
Captain Cook resident Frank Abeyta came to check out the health fair and see what services are available, and said there were several exhibitors he wasn’t expecting to see, such as Habitat for Humanity, which had a table at the fair.
But he was happy to see those other exhibitors, he said, saying it also offers something extra, such as volunteer opportunities.
“You get a better idea of what’s out in the community that you can get involved with,” Abeyta said.
As a resident of South Kona, he said, there is substantial need in the district, given that many of its residents are low-income and access to care “is not that great.”
And events like the fair offer something for everyone, both those with insurance and without.
“You can get basic services free and if you don’t have good access to health care, then I mean, that’s important,” he said.
Rebecca Logan, who sits on the board of directors of the West Hawaii Community Health Center and is a co-chair of the Health Fair, called on the public to shake off the stigma that a need for help or assistance is something to be embarrassed about.
“We have so much resources here,” she said. “Use it.”