Big Island Organizations & Programs Losing Funding

[MyManao]

Healthcare service funding under Title X was suddenly, without warning halted for many clinics in East Hawaii...

Many clinics? Seriously, that’s all parts of the old Bay Clinic.. which.. as per their web site..

https://www.hicommunityhealthcenter.org/history-merger/

In 2022, Bay Clinic and West Hawaiʻi Community Health Center, both non-profit Federally Qualified Health Centers, merged operations as Hawai’i Island Community Health Center.

It’s the "non-profit Federally Qualified Health Centers” part which is the meat of the matter. Their model.. how they pay their bills since all the way back to Susan Maile and the women's clinic days.. has always been based on tapping into federally funded programs.. and without I doubt they have a revenue stream.. or doctors for that matter.

I've personally seen, and been affected by, their use of a program that sponsors doctors fresh out of training to go and work in rural America for so many years in exchange for their student loans being paid off. The purpose of the program is to hook so many of the doctors that actually do the time into falling in love with a community and staying on after their funding period is up. In other words encourage doctors to stay here and become a part of our community, and serve us as doctors for their life.

I had one such doctor, she worked in Pahoa, she fell in love with us, and bought a home, had her kids in our schools, and her husband working here in his profession. And when the years were up and she was brought before the board and presented a plan to stay on.. she was fired, and subsequently moved back to the mainland. And all her patients.. well.. they just brought in the next young starry eyed.. and started all over..

Maybe we deserve better, though I doubt we'll get it. And now, for many, there may be nothing, thanks to all that voted for the orange moron.