Kaʻū News Briefs, Monday, Oct. 24, 2022

    He talked about being assigned as a physician to Hilo when he first came here in the National Health

Mo'oheau Bandstand in Hilo, which gubernatorial candidate Josh Green called "the spiritual center for the Democratic Party," during his campaign speech on Sunday. Photo from Big Island Video News

Corps, following medical school and his residency. Green said, however, on his second day on the job in Hilo, the doctor in Kaʻū  quit. Green said he was sent to Kaʻū "to be the physician. In Kaʻū I inherited the luckiest moments in a doctor's life. I inherited 4,000 Filipino patients, 4,000 Hawaiian patients and 20 witness relocation patients from New York City," he joked. "And I became their doctor for four years. And during those four years, I would come and take call at Hilo Hospital and I began to learn the stories of our people in Hawai'i. And the people were extraordinary..."

      Green said he was "providing hospice care also because as the only doctor in Kaʻū...we didn't have a lot of extra services. We didn't have ambulances - 65 miles all the way from Kaʻū, up to Hilo if you want to get care." 

      He talked about diagnosing a man in Kaʻū: "I diagnosed his lung cancer in the clinic, not with a CT scan, which we didn't have, not with a chest x-ray, but because he was so sick I could actually hear the muffled sounds in his chest on a physical exam." Green said the man "just drifted into the clinic" and that Green said he wondered about this patient's story as he visited his home and gave him pain medications and oxygen. He said he learned that the man was a pilot and engineer who lived half time in Alaska and half time in Kaʻū. Green said this "gentleman would fly his plane between the atolls in the Aleutian Islands and take the ice off the nuclear warheads in those islands that were protecting America. And from all that radiation, he developed lung cancer and then came home to live with us."

    Green called the man and his wife extraordinary, saying that she was "a four-foot- 10 Inuit woman" with a Phd in physics. "And the children that they raised who went to public schools here are now three doctors and one lawyer and are these extraordinary Hawaiian kids in their own way, 'cause they grew up here. And they became a part of this society from birth and they integrated just like so many have integrated into our society. So I began to see these people, these stories that were just amazing.

    "But the local people were struggling," said Green. "They didn't have access to health care, except for one guy - me. Didn't have access to mental health services, or trauma services or CAT scans. And I began to think that maybe we deserve more as Big Island residents. We needed more for our people. So I asked our local Democrats what I should do; should I be an advisor?  And they said, 'If you're so smart you should run for office. We hate the guy in Kona.' So I started going door to door...." He said (now U.S. Senator) Brian Schatz flew over "to make sure I wasn't a crazy candidate," and decided Green was ok and gave good advice.

Josh Green focused on his service as a physician in Ka'u during his speech   during his speech as a candidate for governor, at the Democratic rally at  Hilo Bandstand on Sunday.

   Green said he thought of himself as a good candidate, passionate about health care, but thought he would lose. "But one week before the election, it came out that my opponent was a cocaine dealer and I was able to win that election." 

    It was 2004 when Green won the election for state House of Representatives. Representing Kona, he served two terms in the House and three terms in the state Senate before winning the post of Lieutenant Governor in 2018 and deciding to run for Governor, winning the primary this year, the General Election Day coming up on Nov. 8.