By Craig T. Kojima, Star-Bulletin
Queen's Hospital's Fe Cardenas, right, shows an EEG machine
to Professor Su Guoda, center. Ken Lin interprets for the two.
It's also a place of high unemployment and fewer health services than the rest of the state.
The Five Mountain Medical Community, a committee of local health, business and government representatives, is trying to capitalize on the area's unique environment by developing an international health hub of hotels, spas and hospitals that eventually will provide 1,000 jobs over the next five years and improve the health of residents as well as visitors. The committee is promoting a community that incorporates traditional healing with high-tech medicine.
"The way we practice medicine today is rather archaic," said Earl Bakken, inventor of the pacemaker, who spearheaded the project after he retired on the Big Island. "People are body, mind and spirit. You have to treat all three. People are looking for the human side of medicine."
The project includes the 50-room North Hawaii Community Hospital in Waimea, a private, nonprofit hospital that opened in May and operates on a patient-centered philosophy. Its backers say the facility is the first of its kind in the country and will attract health professionals as well as patients from around the world.
Hotels and spas in the area are also part of the project, an example of the health tourism that Gov. Ben Cayetano is promoting. The Orchid at Mauna Lai, for example, has tripled the size of its Center for Well Being spa and hired a staff of specialists, said spa director Jean Sunderland.
The Orchid's center includes Hawaiian lomilomi massage, meditation by the sea, movement classes and an entire menu specially designed for healthy eating.
"We are positioning ourselves truly as a wellness destination for healing the mind, body and spirit," said Sunderland, who is coordinating similar efforts at other hotels and telling the hospital what each provides. "We're at the forefront and it's important for us to work together."
The new Orchid spa opened in September and already about 10 percent of the hotel's guests are coming for health and wellness. Most are upscale visitors from the mainland. The hotel will be advertising in Japan, where Sunderland sees lots of potential for health tourism.
Sunderland said it would be difficult to coordinate such health tourism projects on Oahu but sees it happening on Kauai down the road.