After sustaining major damage during the storms earlier this month, the future of Kula Hospital is unclear.
The historic hospital — which celebrated its 115th anniversary last year — was evacuated after the first Kona low storm brought major wind and water damage. But nearly two weeks later, there still hasn’t been a full accounting of the damage.
“We’re still very early into our response to the storm,” said Lynn Fulton, CEO of Maui Health, which operates Kula Hospital.
Fulton told Aloha State Daily that the first Kona low storm dumped about 48 inches of rain on Kula. Water inundated Kula Hospital’s fifth-floor balcony, where it pooled and flowed down the side of the building, trickling in through window frames on lower floors.
Fulton said she was only able to reach the hospital a few days after the storm subsided. By then, bubbling was evident throughout the walls of the hospital, and engineers from Kaiser Permanente confirmed that water had thoroughly intruded throughout the building’s walls.
The same was true for the neighboring Hale Makamae facility, an intermediate care ward for developmentally disabled patients.
Maui Health was able to relocate 112 patients, Fulton said. Some were moved to a new care site quickly set up in Kīhei, in a building leased from ‘Ohana Pacific Health, while others were sent to Maui Memorial Medical Center, which Fulton said was largely undamaged by the storms.
Most Kula Hospital staff “followed the patients” to those same sites, Fulton said.
But the storm has left Kula without the hospital’s 114 patient beds, and Fulton said it’s too early to say whether the hospital can be repaired, let alone when it will reopen.
Fulton said the loss of a convenient emergency care center is of most pressing concern. With the next closest emergency room located at Maui Memorial Medical Center, some 22 miles away, Fulton said Maui Health is considering deploying mobile clinics or other solutions to prevent a serious loss of services for the area.
However, she said, any such mobile clinic will require a certain amount of setup, including licensing from the state.
The state Department of Health told ASD via email that Maui Health has sent DOH a formal request for a waiver to allow for the relocation of long-term care services to alternative sites. Meanwhile, the DOH has also begun a request for the Hawai‘i National Guard to remain on standby for potential patient evacuation and to ensure the future availability of EMS transport.
In the meantime, Kula Hospital’s primary care clinic somehow avoided any significant storm damage despite its location near the main building. While Fulton said she isn’t sure if that clinic will be able to continue operating if major construction is required at the hospital itself, for the time being it will remain in service.
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