Political conditions between Gov. David Ige and fellow state Senate Democrats are worsening.

The latest flashpoint is the inability of the Ige administration to explain to lawmakers why the governor can’t reach agreement with Kaiser Permanente’s takeover of Maui Memorial Hospital.

Earlier this month four state senators — Roz Baker, Gil Keith-Agaran and J. Kalani English, all Democrats representing Maui, and Josh Green, a Big Island Democrat — wrote Ige asking for him to call the Legislature back into session to deal with and resolve the issues stopping the transfer.

The four complained in a television news interview last week that Ige has not responded to their concerns and the issue with the Maui hospital is getting more worrisome.

The big issue is that the two public worker unions representing the hospital workers — the Hawaii Government Employees Association and the United Public Workers — have repeatedly fought the transfer. It represents the biggest privatization action in state history and the unions don’t want it to happen.

The latest collapse spotlights a major break between the Senate and Ige. The issue is big enough that when Ige vetoed a bill to ease along the hospital transfer with additional hospital worker benefits, the Legislature went into special session to override his veto.

The break comes down to complaints that Ige has frozen all communications.

Green said in an interview that he has worked with the last three governors. “With Linda Lingle, she would say ‘I disagree with you in policy but I will work with you.’

“In dealing with (Neil) Abercrombie, he would say ‘Just please don’t lash out at me in the paper, we can work it out together … ‘

“Now with Ige, it is silence, nothing. He could at least send a text saying ‘Shut up jerk, we are on it,’ but nothing,” Green said.

The Kona Democrat is also an emergency room physician with big concerns about the health of Maui residents.

Green argued that the Maui hospital is the major health care provider for the three islands that make up Maui County and it is already operating at just 75 percent staffing capacity because of the uncertainty of the hospital transfer.

“We lost adult psychiatric care; they have lost a significant capacity for ob-gyn care. If you have a complicated pregnancy are you looking forward to a ‘life-flight’ to get you to Honolulu, or if you have a complicated fracture and they only have orthopedic surgeons for half the time, how is that?” asked Green.

“I don’t think the Oahu guys have a realistic understanding of health care on the neighbor islands,” he said.

For the Maui hospital and Kaiser, Green said, the problem is that doctors and nurses are leaving or not signing new contracts

“Plus you have people who can’t commit to coming from California or New York; they won’t commit their lives to uncertainty, so it is double limbo,” he said.

One solution, Green said, would be for Ige to call in Kaiser, which has now delayed the transfer until the middle of next year, and tell it to start moving in now and the state will bear the extra costs.

Or Ige could invite the Maui legislative delegation in to watch if and when the governor ever sits down with the UPW and HGEA and says, “Can we talk?”

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.