Categorized | Opinions

Wilson: Mahalo to the community from Ka’u Hospital

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Nona B. Wilson, RN, BSN, MSA | Assistant Administrator/DON Ka’u Hospital

When we were hired, my administrator and I were faced with a facility that was in awful shape and looked the part.

It was lacking in needed equipment. Our job was to accomplish “our dream” of being the best Critical Access Hospital with little in the way of new financial support.

The availability of state monies has not improved much since that day seven years ago however what we have accomplished with the assistance and support of our community is nothing short of a miracle.

Who we are now and what we are able to provide in the way of care is testimony to the belief our community placed in us.

Some examples of changes to the physical plant are: Finished painting the whole inside of our facility, built new cabinets in our staff lounge, at the nurses’ station and for x-ray storage, received newly designed wooden signs for the inside of the facility, built a fence around the yard outside our front patio that overlooks the ocean with a pergola complete with outside furniture and plants so that our residents could go outside to sit and yet be safe.

In the emergency department (ED) we added new surgical lights, piped in oxygen and equipment in our ED to include three physio monitors with capnography capacity, a ventilator and an ultrasound machine among other things and expanded our ED from three beds to four.

We then added a new OB stretcher and built a nursing and MD office in the ED.

All of our nursing staff are certified in ACLS, PALS, and TNCC matching the skill set of any ED nurse in a large hospital. We have three ED physicians who are now credentialed in the use of our Ultra Sound machine.

We send our most critical patients direct to The Queens Medical Center, Straub Clinic & Hospital and Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children for advanced care.

Upgrading, renovations and the opportunity for adding additional services needed by our community continue.

We pay tribute to those who have so willingly given to us to make all of this possible: Volcano Rotary, Ka Papale ulaula o Ka‘u, Ka Lae Quilters and the Golf group, O Ka‘u Kakou, our Foundation, The Robert Iwamoto family and the numerous individual contributors who bought our residents a beautiful new bus and the many others who have contributed labor, supplies, their talent. So many.

We are grateful beyond words for their generosity and aloha. We can truly attest to the fact that aloha lives and breathes in Ka‘u.

— Find out more:
www.kau.hhsc.org

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