Hospital escape demands answers

Six month ago, Hawaii State Hospital escapee Randall Saito was picked up by deputy sheriffs in Stockton, Calif. — three days after he had slipped out of the Kaneohe facility, making his way to Maui and then California before an alarm was even sounded.

State officials promptly did the right thing by tasking six investigators from the state Attorney General’s Office with piecing together how Saito, a killer who nearly four decades ago was acquitted of murder by reason of insanity, was able to mastermind the escape as well as access more than $6,000 cash, mobile devices and extra clothes after leaving the mental hospital’s grounds. Also at that time, seven hospital employees tied to the incident were suspended.

So it’s appalling that today, long after the state’s no-nonsense response to the screw-up, there has been no update on how Saito’s plan was hatched from the hospital confines — complete with a contraband cellphone and multiple fake IDs.

While the state Department of Health said it has tightened security and made improvements at the hospital to better ensure protocols are heeded, the public is still awaiting a candid accounting of what went wrong, exactly. Rather than letting this become another government debacle swept under the public rug, Gov. David Ige must exert leadership to provide answers.

An Oahu grand jury on Thursday returned an indictment against Saito, charging him with counts of identity theft and escape. And last month, a Circuit Court judge found Saito mentally fit to stand trial for an escape charge. Meanwhile, the state’s administrative investigation drags on, and six hospital employees remain off duty — but with pay, per their union contract. The seventh person, who worked under a separate state contract, is no longer at the hospital.

State officials have maintained that they’re unable to release information on personnel issues, which are confidential. Still, an update should disclose whether any high-level staffers are among those suspended and collecting public paychecks.

In January — after three years of planning — the state awarded a $140 million contract for a new 144-bed psychiatric facility at the overcrowded hospital site. Virtually all the patients treated at Hawaii’s only public adult psychiatric hospital for serious mental illness are ordered there by the court.

Construction is set to start this summer. Before ground-breaking, though, in the interest of pinpointing safety issues, Ige should release at least initial findings of the attorney general’s investigation into Saito’s escape. Surely some strides have been made by now.

Some escape-related details that could inform security upgrades emerged months ago in court documents. For example, hospital surveillance video showed Saito retrieving a bag filled with clothes from a combination-locked cabinet, then walking off campus through a combination-locked gate.

Committed to the facility in 1981 after being acquitted of murder by reason of insanity for killing a 29-year-old woman in Ala Moana Center’s parking lot, Saito is known as a manipulative and “extremely dangerous” patient. He was reported missing about eight to 10 hours after his escape.

At a November news conference soon after Saito’s recapture, a visibly vexed Ige said: “We need to know where these patients are, especially those that can be a danger to our community,” and called for accountability. Indeed, the public deserves a satisfactory accounting. It’s time we got one, Governor.