Dear Maui Community, 

Please Save the Dates Dec 6 and 13, 2023 at 6pm-8pm via Zoom. Link will be provided at a later time.  

Please circulate. The zoom events will allow anonymous participants and I'm currently looking into a voice changer app that is compatible with Zoom so people who want to participate can and not fear retaliation.  An invite to the event will follow soon as I have the speakers and agenda finalized. For now, PLEASE SAVE THE DATES.

Dear community, 

I want to reveal a momentous decision I've recently reached. An incredible job offer presented the opportunity to take me away from Maui for parts of the month. After deep reflection spanning two months, I ultimately chose to decline this offer last Friday. Why, you might wonder? Because I wholeheartedly believe in the urgency of bolstering healthcare within our community. My first mission is to unite physicians, providers, nurses, mental health experts, and community advocates to champion changes and improvements within our lone hospital system.

With a new CEO on the horizon, we must come together to articulate our healthcare priorities as a community. This is where I humbly seek your support. We will collaborate to organize informative events that not only educate but also galvanize us into an indomitable force for positive change.

Our initial two events will comprise dedicated workgroup days. The first will delve into the historical background of how MHS obtained the contract to privatize MMMC, the lingering challenges from that transition hoping to include the labor unions perspectives on this, the responsibilities the hospital owes our community considering the significant taxpayer funding it has received, the connection to the Kaiser Foundation, ongoing management and leadership issues, discussions on defining health equity for our community, and a dialogue on our legal rights as providers, physicians, and patients and matters of hospital privileges and credentialing in ensuring health services availability for our community. We will also strategize on how to move forward effectively.

The second day will be an opportunity to crystallize our demands and requests from the hospital, as well as our elected officials. These will be documented in an op-ed and petition, which we will circulate and submit to all news outlets in Hawaii. Together, we will be an unstoppable force advocating for the well-being of our community. 

Tentative Dates for the Maui Community Healthcare Watchgroup workgroups will be Dec 6 and 13 at 6 pm to 8pm. We begin.  We have to start taking control of all these big institutions to steer it towards our priorities and we can only do that if we are truly informed, organized and unified towards our common causes which we all will help formulate together.  

If you already know you cannot make the dates, please privately email me with your list of priorities and I will include them in the discussions during those two days without attaching your names if you prefer to be anonymous.  

Mahalo.