Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 9, Number 12, 1 Kekemapa 1992 — Ola kino o nā Hawaiʻi [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Ola kino o nā Hawaiʻi

nawanan healtn horizons

Wanted: Doctor to work with Na Pu'uwai on Moloka'i

by Pearl Leialoha Page At any one time, Moloka'i has about three doctors on duty. There are perhaps a total of seven doctors on the island to serve a population of 7,000, most of whieh depend on Medicare and Medicaid. Of the seven doctors, several are retired or in semiretirement, and only two physicians accept patients who have no insurance. Those statistics are part of the challenge involved in helping Hawaiians gain adequate health care on the friendly isle, said Billy Akutagawa, executive director of Pu'uwai, one of five native Hawaiian health care agencies funded by the 1988 Native Hawaiian Heahh Care Act. Nā Pu'uwai has been working with the Department of Health to fly in doctors to conduct day-long clinics on diabetes, and assisting DOH with reinstituting preventive dental care in the schools. Ng Pu'uwai hopes to offer three types of service in its second year of operations: case management, heahh promotion and disease prevention, and primary elinieal service. "The heahh promotion and disease prevention service is really going great now," Akutagawa says.

"We offer screening clinics, educational clinics working with diabetics in the community and doing blood pressure readings and glucose monitoring. We hope to bring in a mammography program later." Dental health education in the schools is or.e of the educational programs Ng Pu'uwai has been helping conduct. Together the Department of Health and bg lAi'uwai have been providing aenial education to the elementary and intermediate siudents."Moloka'i kids haven't had that service īn ihe past few years," he said. Without a doctor on staff, Nā Pu'uwai is basically a conduit to assist other heahh providers in reaching the communities on Moloka'i and Lāna'i. "We're saying at this stage we'll do the leg work to funnel their information here," Akutagawa said. During its first year, the health organization has been dealing with administrative tasks and gearing up for data collection. About 250 clients have already been through an intake progress by Nā Pu'uwai's six-member staff, whieh includes two community heahh workers. The agency gets its name from a heart study it

was commissioned to do in 1985. When the study was completed, the group continued to meet periodically in homes and conducted some fundraising. "We were basically research oriented," Akutagawa says. "Interestingly enough the results from the heart study were used to validate the need for the Native Hawaiian Health Care Act," Akutagawa said. He hopes to do another heart survey to update the previous one and to serve as a basis for delivering other heallh services.

Susan Poaha, Wendy Espaniola, Lorna Reyes and Bill Akutagawa staff the Nā Pu'uwai offir.e.