Editorials
Thursday, March 12, 1998IN a show of independence - or was it petulance? - the City Council has rejected Mayor Harris' $1 billion operating budget rather than send it to committee for study. Council members wanted to express their displeasure with Harris' proposals for restructuring the city-county government. In the end, however, the Council will probably go along with most of the mayor's plans, because there isn't enough money to continue business as usual. City Council shouldn't be
rushed on changesThe government reorganization proposed by Harris got a mostly favorable initial response in the Council, but the mood seemed to change after members heard from officials who might lose their jobs. It seems clear that Harris must abandon his take-it-or-leave-it position and do some negotiating.
Opponents say they support the concept of streamlining government - the plan would reduce the number of departments and agencies from 27 to 16 - but contended that the proposal is too extensive for approval by the end of May. Seven of the nine members say they would vote no if the vote were held now.
Council Chairman John DeSoto said Harris' declaration that the plan had to be accepted without revision sounded like a threat. "They want to force it down the throat of the Council," he charged.
The mayor has himself modified his proposals by abandoning the idea to merge the Fire Department into a Public Safety Department. Now he wants to keep the Fire Department separate and establish an Emergency Services Department, to include the medical examiner, emergency medical services, civil defense and ocean safety.
We question the proposal to combine the Board of Water Supply with the Department of Wastewater Management and refuse, solid waste, recycling and other functions of the Public Works Department. The board was made semi-autonomous decades ago to keep politics out of water service decisions.
Streamlining city-county government is certainly worth pursuing, but with care. The Council is right to refuse to be rushed.
THE rising cost of health care has been given another boost by the state Supreme Court in a decision that is likely to increase the price of medical-malpractice insurance. The decision extends the responsibility in malpractice claims to doctors who don't inform patients of surgical risks when referring them to surgeons. The increased cost of malpractice insurance will be passed on to consumers. Medical malpractice
The case involved a 46-year-old woman, Rose O'Neal, who underwent jaw surgery in Hawaii. The surgery caused her face to be lopsided and resulted in continued pain in her neck, back and shoulders. Surgeon Ray Berringer agreed to a financial settlement with O'Neal. However, O'Neal also sued orthodontist Henry Hammer, who referred her for surgery, and an oral surgeon, Lewis Williamson, who may have given a second opinion. The Supreme Court ruled that referring physicians who retain control in cases and those giving second opinions are obligated to inform patients of surgical risks.
In issuing its ruling, the high court noted that most other states don't obligate referring doctors to obtain the patient's informed consent prior to surgery. That seems appropriate, since the surgeon would be much more qualified to inform the patients of surgical risks than the doctor who made the referral. The surgeon obviously has greater expertise about such risks in his speciality.
The Hawaii Medical Association and the Hawaii Federation of Physicians and Dentists have called the court ruling "a very ill-advised, dangerous decision." Association president Leonard Howard predicts it will significantly increase medical-care costs because of the filing of more malpractice suits and the inevitable increase in professional liability costs.
The Legislature is considering a bill to limit the requirement of informed consent to facts needed by a patient to make a decision. The bill should be tailored to address the problem created by the Supreme Court's unfortunate expansion of liability.
BOTH the Bush and Clinton administrations have been accused of encouraging, then abandoning, Iraqi opponents of Saddam Hussein. A stronger and more consistent effort to support people who want to get rid of Saddam is needed. Opponents of Saddam
Yet a federal immigration judge in Los Angeles has opened the way for deportation of six Iraqis who worked with the CIA in unsuccessful plots against the dictator. They have been declared "a danger to the national security of the United States" on the basis of secret testimony, reportedly provided by FBI agents. Their lawyers say that if sent back to Iraq the six probably would be executed.
The Iraqis were offered refuge in the U.S. when two CIA plots against Saddam collapsed in 1996. But on arrival in California they were placed in detention centers operated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
The defendants' lawyers were not permitted to cross-examine the agents who testified against their clients, because their questions called for answers that the INS claimed were too secret to discuss in open court.
Even the judge's decision was deemed too secret to be made public; their lawyers cannot read it.
Because of these restrictions, it is impossible to form an opinion on whether the judge's decision was correct. However, in view of the government's repeated blunders in dealing with Saddam, it seems entirely possible that the judge was wrong. If so, she may be sending six enemies of Saddam to their deaths.
Rupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
