Ka‘ū News Briefs, Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2022

PROTECTING OUR HEALTH WAS THE FIRST HEADLINE IN HAWAI'I'S SATE OF THE STATE presentation on Monday. Gov. David Ige gave the address to the Hawai'i Senate and House of Representatives, the mayors and other elected officials, as well as the public. He aska the legislature tohelp fund an expansion of the residency program at the University of Hawai'i Medical School to help with the doctor shortage in Hawai'i, proposing the number doctors practicing their residency on Hawai'i and other Neighbor Islands increase from five to 50. He notes that "most young doctors end up 
practicing where they do their residency."
    He also asks for funding "to strengthen the university’s nursing program and add more clinical instructors at our community colleges. We want to add 39 lecturers across multiple campuses to handle the increased demand for nursing programs." In a program that could involve Pāhala and Nāʻālehu Libraries, the governor mentions $3.7 million in  federal funds to improve access to health information, especially for underserved communities. The project will train and employ high school and undergraduate students to be health and digital “navigators” in 50 libraries across the state. These navigators will help individuals access telehealth services and find information on the coronavirus and other health topics. The governor says, "I believe everything begins with keeping us healthy and safe. Over the last seven years (of Ige serving as governor) we focused on modernizing our telehealth infrastructure, providing health services to underserved populations, and strengthening mental health services. "In response to the pandemic, we moved quickly to: Take immediate action to protect our health; provide healthcare for another 110,000  residents 

under our Medicaid program (a 34-percent increase since the start of the pandemic), and make sure that everyone had good healthcare coverage. At the same time, we distributed critical medical supplies, including PPEs, test kits, vaccines and medicines to protect the elderly, rural communities, as well as the entire state. I deeply appreciate the thousands involved in this task, whose scale and complexity rivals anything we’ve ever done statewide. Vaccinations have proven to be our strongest weapon against the Coronavirus. In all, we’ve provided more than two and a half million shots at hundreds of clinics across the state. Needless to say, this effort remains ongoing."
    The governor also points to the need "to strengthen the medical facilities in our prisons to protect the health of our inmates, staff and the general public. Our plans to relocate OCCC to Halawa will create a modern facility better suited to support the behavioral, mental health and medical needs of its population. In our current budget request, we’ve also asked the Legislature for $45 million to build a consolidated healthcare unit at Halawa that will allow us to better deliver medical and health services there. Clearly, the coronavirus has shown us how persistent and adaptive it can be, as we’ve seen with the Delta and Omicron variants. Even as we learn how to better protect ourselves, we need to remain vigilant." See other topics from the State of the State in Wednesday's Kaʻū News Briefs.