Off the News: Maui County’s struggling hospital

Five years after its transfer to management by Kaiser Permanente, Maui Memorial Medical Center and its health-care branches in Kula and on Lanai are still unable to get by without state funds.

Many had hoped the formerly state-run facilities would be further down the privatization road by now. The governor had hoped the state would be saving $260 million over 10 years and that’s looking out of reach.

The facilities faced problems beyond the pandemic crisis, of course, but COVID-19 surely didn’t help.

A new Mokapu Elementary School

Hip hip hooray for federal defense dollars — all 96 million of them, which have been awarded by the Defense Department to the Hawaii Department of Education to build a new elementary school at Marine Corps Base Hawaii on Oahu’s Windward side.

A brand-new structure will replace Mokapu Elementary School, termed “dilapidated” in the Stars and Stripes newspaper’s account of the grant. With many Hawaii public school facilities in need of repair, let’s hope this frees up funding for that work, as well.