LIHU‘E — Don’t be surprised to find yourself sitting next to a cardiac surgeon or rheumatologist on your next flight to O‘ahu. More medical specialists will be coming and going between Lihu‘e and Honolulu now that The Queen’s Health Care
LIHU‘E — Don’t be surprised to find yourself sitting next to a cardiac surgeon or rheumatologist on your next flight to O‘ahu.
More medical specialists will be coming and going between Lihu‘e and Honolulu now that The Queen’s Health Care Center opened its doors on the second floor of the Kuhio Medical Center across from Wal-Mart on Kuhio Highway Wednesday.
The center’s roster boasts rheumatologists, a cardiac specialist, an allergy specialist, an orthopedic surgeon and, perhaps, a thoracic surgeon.
“We’re responding to what the community said they wanted,” said Helen Arakaki, vice president of the Queen’s Health Care Centers.
Participating physicians at the Kaua‘i clinic include Ken Arakawa, rheumatology; James Sweet, allergy/immunology; Lee Guertler, cardiology; Thomas Owens, orthopedic surgery; and — perhaps — Thomas Owens, thoracic surgery.
The specialists are O‘ahu-based, and will fly to and from Lihu‘e. Indeed, many already see patients on Kaua‘i, Arakaki said, only now they’ll have a convenient place to see them.
The center should attract even more specialists to Kaua‘i, she said.
“We could have up to 15 doctors or more working out of this office,” Arakaki said.
The 1,900 square-foot center has four exam rooms and one physician’s office. The center will operate as an official arm of Queen’s, the state’s only critical-care hospital. It will be open to patients recommended by Kaua‘i’s primary-care physicians, and will accept Hawai‘i’s major insurance plans, like HMSA.
The center sits above Diagnostic Laboratory Services and the X-ray-equipped offices of three primary-care doctors.
With two full-time staff and two specialists in office, the center will be able to handle a significant patient load, Arakaki said. It could be a one-stop shop for many Kaua‘i patients.
“This means that those patients who have had to go to O‘ahu for tests or to see a specialist will now be able to do a lot of that right here,” Arakaki said.
One long-time local ‘Ele‘ele internist, Dr. Mitch Jenkins, is grateful for the new specialists.
“A lot of my patients have had to go to O‘ahu,” he said. “We could use a lot more of these people.”
Endocrinologists, dermatologists, gastro-intestinal specialists — that’s only part of the wish-list local general practitioners would like to see at the center, Jenkins said.
The coming of the center means that more lives could be saved on Kaua‘i, said one of the doctors.
“In Hawai‘i, there’s a tradition of not going to doctors and not talking about problems like shortness of breath or chest pains,” said Dr. Lee Guertler, an interventional cardiologist with the center.
“Now, I won’t just be seeing one patient, but a whole family,” he said.
Extended families talk, Guertler said. That word-of-mouth should create a more health-conscious environment, he said.
That was the case on Moloka‘i, Guertler recalled. He said that, while he often made visits to the island, it wasn’t until the coming of a clinic there that the people began to get healthier.
The center’s doctors will pay for their own flights to and from Kaua‘i, and for their own car and room rentals.
In other words, said Guertler, expanding care on Kaua‘i is not about the money.
“These doctors are all really committed to the island,” he said.
The Queen’s Health Care Centers, a subsidiary of Queen’s Medical Center, operates clinics at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach Resort & Spa in Waikiki; Hawaii Kai Shopping Center, Kapolei and at Honolulu International Airport on O‘ahu, and out of Hilo on the Big Island.
Business Editor Phil Hayworth may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 251) or phayworth@pulitzer.net.
