Hawaii: Save the Transplant Institute of the Pacific!

[Clark]

http://www.staradvertiser.com/s?action=login&f=y&id=134481378

Linda Wong
The daughter of the doctor who performed Hawaii's first kidney transplant believes the Transplant Institute of the Pacific is an essential community resource that must be saved
By Vicki Viotti


Dr. Linda Wong does not seek the spot on the business end of a camera but submitted to publicity in pursuit of one result: that people understand what the community will lose if Hawaii Medical Center shuts down. The biggest loss, she said, is the potential shutdown of the Transplant Institute of the Pacific at HMC-East in Liliha, formerly known as St. Francis Medical Center. That's where Wong performs surgery to give ailing patients donated livers and a new lease on life.

HMC's latest bout with bankruptcy is on hold while its owners seek to find a buyer. HMC-West, located in the growing Ewa district, may be the easier sell, as the only hospital directly serving Oahu's burgeoning Second City. The Liliha campus, by contrast, is a stone's throw away from, and in competition with, other downtown-area hospitals. But it houses Hawaii's only organ transplant center, and its disappearance, Wong said, would upheave many more lives than people may realize.

 ...