Doctors beseech court for radiology injunction

The Cancer Center of Hawaii plans to install $6 million in new equipment at its Liliha and Leeward clinics to offer the types of radiation treatment now available only at the Queen’s Medical Center, Dr. John Lederer, the center’s medical director, said Tuesday.

Installation at the Liliha clinic is scheduled to begin June 1. Installation at the Leeward clinic will begin once the Liliha clinic is operational, Lederer said.

In the meantime, Pacific Radiation Oncology, of which Lederer is one of six principal physicians, is asking a federal judge to issue an injunction allowing Pacific Radiation Oncology doctors to continue using the facilities at Queen’s to treat their cancer patients already undergoing radiation therapy, their patients who will soon need radiation treatment and any future cancer patients who might need such therapy.

U.S. District Judge Leslie E. Kobayashi issued a temporary restraining order Feb. 3 allowing the Pacific Radiation doctors to continue using the facilities at Queen’s for two of their patients who had started radiation treatments. The TRO was issued in response to a Pacific Radiation lawsuit challenging a new Queen’s policy restricting use of the hospital’s oncology radiation facilities to employee physicians.

Kobayashi heard legal arguments Tuesday for and against an injunction to expand the restraining order. Kobayashi said she will probably issue her decision next week. In the meantime, the temporary restraining order remains in effect.

Pacific Radiation Oncology is seeking to use the facilities at Queen’s only for as long as it takes to complete the upgrades at the Cancer Center of Hawaii clinics.

"Our clients are going to get off the Queen’s campus as quickly as they can without harming their patients," Pacific Radiation lawyer Mark Davis said.

The board of directors of Queen’s approved a resolution establishing the employee-physicians-only policy in August. The resolution says the purpose of the new policy is to improve patient satisfaction, quality and continuity of care. The policy took effect Feb. 1.

The board informed Pacific Radiation of the new policy in September and offered its physicians jobs at Queen’s, which has three staff radiation oncologists.

The Pacific Radiation physicians turned down the job offers because they would be barred from providing services at competing facilities and would have to relinquish any ownership or financial arrangement with any other facility that provides radiation oncology services.

The closing of Hawaii Medical Center hospitals in Liliha and Ewa Beach left Queen’s as the only facility on Oahu with an operating room approved for radiation oncology by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.