Greater accountability
needed at Kona hospital
I am writing this letter because my wife almost died, and I believe our community deserves to know why.
Several months ago, my wife began experiencing chest pains, dizziness and other alarming symptoms. We went to Kona Community Hospital — the place we are supposed to be able to trust with our lives. What followed was one of the most surreal and frightening experiences of our family’s life.
The attending physician never came within 5 feet of my wife. It took hours to receive basic fluids. An ultrasound was performed, and we were diagnosed with acute pancreatitis and told to follow up with a personal doctor the following week. When we questioned the diagnosis, the doctor was dismissive and left us sitting there for over an hour.
During that time, we watched as a man in the shared room — a repeat visitor — was attended to by multiple nurses and social workers. We overheard staff tell him he couldn’t keep coming back, yet they worked diligently until they found a reason to admit him.
I understand every patient deserves care. What I cannot understand is how we were made to feel invisible while my wife sat there in serious danger.
We left feeling dismissed — and, honestly, feeling foolish for going, because this is not the first time we have experienced this kind of neglect at KCH.
The next morning, my wife woke up in greater pain. We made the decision to drive all the way to Hilo Benioff Medical Center We live in South Kona. That drive felt endless.
At Hilo, doctors quickly discovered that my wife had been internally bleeding and had lost over half her blood. She was admitted to the intensive care unit, where she spent a week. She required blood transfusions, and the internal bleed had to be cauterized and clipped.
When I shared what had happened at KCH, the Hilo staff were visibly alarmed. Kona had sent us home to die.
Our daughter and I spent the most terrifying week of our lives not knowing if my wife would survive. Thankfully, Hilo saved her life — quite literally.
When the bills came, Hilo — where she received life-saving intensive care for a week — was a fraction of what KCH charged for the visit that nearly killed her. We tried to get an itemized bill from Kona to understand the charges. It took over four months and multiple requests to receive it. When we finally tried to reach someone in their customer service department, we never received a call back.
I want to be clear: This is not an indictment of every individual who works at Kona Community Hospital. Many of them are doing their best under difficult circumstances. This is a failure of culture, leadership and the decision-makers who have allowed this standard of care to persist and worsen.
It is also a failure of the State of 91直播 to hold this institution accountable. I have lived in this community for over 20 years. I have always told myself it would get better. It has not.
How can anyone grow old here with confidence? How can a family raise a child with medical needs? How can any of us depend on a system that is, at best, indifferent — and at worst, willing to let people die?
We rally around causes near and far. We protest, we organize, we show up. I am asking our community to direct some of that same energy toward the health care crisis in our own back yard — because it is affecting our families, our neighbors, and our kupuna right now.
Kona Community Hospital needs real accountability. Our community deserves better. My wife deserved better.
Will Schneider
South Kona
