WAILUKU - Maui Memorial Medical Center had a "monster session" at the Legislature, wrapping up Friday with much-sought-after bills that will give it more autonomy than ever as well as tens of millions of dollars for operations and new facilities, said Wesley Lo, chief executive officer of the hospital.
The Maui County legislative delegation did yeoman's work, Lo gushed Saturday. With the passage of Senate Bill 1673 at 11:56 p.m. Friday - right at the final deadline for bills to move to a floor vote this week - Maui Memorial will finally have the freedom to form the kind of public-private partnership it has tried to forge for years.
"It is a new day for the hospital," Lo said. "We pretty much got everything we wanted."
The hospital will not be carved out of its parent group, the 13-facility Hawaii Health Systems Corp., or placed in the state Department of Health, as some earlier bills suggested.
Instead, Maui Memorial and its board of directors will be able to negotiate labor contracts on their own and have the authority to manage their own funds, said one of the overhaul's engineers, Sen. Roz Baker, D-West Maui-South Maui. Maui Memorial can also now take out loans or revenue bonds, or participate in municipal leasing, all key components to attracting outside partners and investment dollars, she said.
Lo has said he needed the autonomy provided by the bill to finally get serious about ongoing negotiations for partnerships with several unnamed potential nonprofit and for-profit health care companies and hospitals, although the immediate possibilities for some of those partnerships have been limited by the economic downturn.
"It's still just a whole range of options available that they didn't have before," Baker said.
As part of the Legislature's two-year, $5 billion budget, the hospital received $29.5 million from the state capital improvement projects program.
Maui Memorial got $5 million to add up to 20 more long-term-care beds at Kula Hospital; $15 million for planning the estimated $100 million, 100,000-square-foot brain, vascular and heart wing; $7.2 million for an inpatient dialysis unit; and $2.3 million for a helipad, Lo said. The right kind of partnership could lead to other specialization as well, he said, such as obstetrics, and more operating rooms.
On Friday, the bill unanimously passed the House-Senate conference committee, which negotiates the final version of the bill before it goes to a floor vote this week. Aside from Baker, Maui County lawmakers on the committee included Reps. Kyle Yamashita, Gil Keith-Agaran and Sen. Shan Tsutsui, who is co-chairman of the powerful Senate Ways and Means Committee. Lo also thanked Rep. Joe Souki and the late Rep. Bob Nakasone.
"I think the bill and the (capital improvement) appropriations set up a framework for Maui Memorial to stand on its own someday, if that's what the community wants," Keith-Agaran said.
Baker said she does not expect Gov. Linda Lingle to veto the measure.
The bill arrived right at the deadline for final decking, or the process in which proposed legislation can move forward to become law.
Tsutsui was credited with boosting the Hawaii Health Systems' budget by $30 million a year for the next two years. Most of that money will go toward the system's three acute-care hospitals on Maui and in Hilo and Kona, Baker said.
Baker said those three hospitals, which must take all comers and also have a shortage of long-term care beds, leading to expensive hospital stays for nonacute patients, together consume most of the budget for Hawaii Health Systems Corp.
Lo said Maui Memorial averages a monthly deficit of $2.5 million and needed to borrow $10 million just to pay its vendors and keep afloat. The hospital also receives a $20 million annual state subsidy.
The reorganization bill will allow Maui Memorial to continue receiving federal Medicaid and Medicare dollars because of its ongoing partnership with the embattled Hawaii Health Systems Corp, Baker said. Lastly, Neighbor Islands will have more representation on the Hawaii Health System board, Baker said.
"This is sort of part of the master plan for us to be able to control our own destiny rather than just looking at the state," Lo said, adding, "This is huge."
Chris Hamilton can be reached at chamilton@mauinews.com.
