There has been a lot of front page press lately, revolving around the ongoing financial difficulties being incurred by the Wilcox Health System, and their current pursuit of a merger with the Kapi’olani Health System and Straub Clinic & Hospital.
There has been a lot of front page press lately, revolving around the ongoing financial difficulties being incurred by the Wilcox Health System, and their current pursuit of a merger with the Kapi’olani Health System and Straub Clinic & Hospital.
What seems truly unfortunate is that the majority of these financial difficulties would appear to stem from the local system attempting to be the “be-all” and “end-all” of health care on Kaua’i.
This is not to say that choice and competition aren’t good for the public. It just seems somewhat ludicrous to see ad after ad every day of the duplicate and triplicate care providers, newly hired into the Wilcox physician-staffing morass, at a time when the system is hemorrhaging money.
Rather than partnering with the Independent Physicians and related health care providers, Wilcox has steadfastly invested in head to head competition, for what must be a rather fixed demographic market base of health care customers.
Another cause for concern is that, by always competing directly with the other health and hospital care providers on Kaua’i, Wilcox has not allowed each to specialize and thereby complement the services provided between them. (Here on the Westside, we have fought tooth and nail to keep our community hospital open, as are the people of Kapa’a towards retaining their communities’ long-term care facility.) Lastly, rather than sell out to a third entity (that will continue to expend thousands upon thousands of marketing and duplicate service dollars, so as to “maintain” a competitive edge), why doesn’t the Wilcox Health System Board consider merging with the state-wide Hawai’i Health Systems Corporation, which has been establishing itself, over the past few years, as the provider of choice for healthcare services among the outer islands?
I believe that the HHSC currently manages the three major acute hospitals and numerous long term and urgent care facilities on Maui, the Big Island and Lani (as well as facilities on Kaua’i).
Wouldn’t it be prudent to seek that same breadth of integrated healthcare services here on Kaua’i, through which each of our three community hospitals could then complement, rather than directly compete with each other?
Mark Nellis, President West Kaua’i Business and Professional Association
