Community support helps kids with cancer

I read with interest your Jan. 30 "Health Watch" column regarding the Beads of Courage program for pediatric oncology patients on the mainland. Thanks to a generous local donor, Kapiolani Medical Center for Women & Children will soon be able to offer this program to our keiki who are being treated for cancer.

Our goal at Hawaii's "Children's Hospital" is to offer the latest technology and finest care to our kids. What we all need to be reminded of is the increasing importance of community and donor support to maintain our excellent facility for children. Our keiki deserve it.

Article erred on medical liability

As a practicing emergency medicine physician in Honolulu, I thought the article on the recent release of the National Report Card on the State of Emergency Medicine was very informative and illustrates the dire national crisis that we all face (Star-Bulletin, Jan. 11).

However, it is very important that readers know that limits on medical liability do NOT lead to decreased access to health care as was mentioned in the article ("Limits on medical liability lead to decreased access to health care as doctors close their practices or move them to other states," according to the story.)

The exact opposite is true, as it is the LACK of limits on medical liability that increases premiums, which in turn force doctors to close their practices and move elsewhere. This is an important distinction to make because other states have demonstrated that there has to be a high level of public awareness and public support for tort reform and medical liability limitation legislation to solve this problem and increase access to health care for citizens.

'People's plan' can help preserve Kakaako

On Jan. 12, local news media informed Hawaii's residents that a grassroots group Save Our Kaka'ako Makai! wants to stop condos going up on parklands and has presented a plan for the 36.5 acres called The Peoples Preferred Plan. Both papers' front pages also blared that the first of more than a dozen 40-story condo projects is now completed at 1288 Ala Moana.

With so many new high-rise condos going up in this urban core area, don't you think we need to preserve more open space?

Native Hawaiians have been faced with continuous changes, not only to our aina and our culture, but to our lifestyle in general, and we are forced to adapt. The lives of our kupuna revolved around the 'aina, it provided them with what they needed, and they returned their blessings with ho'okupu, with prayer and aloha. Ka po'e Hawaii belong to the 'aina, it is our kuleana to protect and preserve it.

See the People's Preferred Plan at www.Kewalo.org. It has fish ponds, mauka streams, native Hawaiian forests, a surfing museum, performing arts theaters, canoe building and sailing, arts and crafts, halau hula, local-style restaurants, a farmers' market, and gift shops ... but no condos! It will forever be an oasis in a concrete desert.

Funding to realize this plan is possible through nonprofits and grant money from city and county, state and federal agencies, from private businesses and wealthy individuals.

Let's start by getting the tenants who polluted the precious aina to clean up the hazardous materials they have dumped on our land for 50 years. Then we can plant grass and native trees and shrubs to cover the scars. While these grow and provide shade and cleansed air we can take our time to evolve and realize the People's Plan.

Landlords should charge less for rent

With everything going on in this world, what makes me sicker than ever is how greedy people have become when it come to rent prices. Hasn't anyone learned from 9/11 what matters in this world? Would they charge their children or grandchildren those prices?

It's sickening to think that I, along with other renters, have to work so hard just to have a roof over our heads, when what a studio is costing to rent nowadays is what mortgages on two-bedroom homes were just a few years ago. I know there are articles after articles on this subject, but enough is enough. Get a grip! Who do you think you are? What are we fighting for?

Sub teachers deserve back pay with interest

In December the court validated what substitute teachers have been saying for years. The Department of Education cheated subs by illegally underpaying them for nearly a decade (Star-Bulletin, Dec. 17). Admittedly, the DOE did run into some bad luck in this case. For some reason the judge chose to use facts and applicable law to reach her decision rather than the DOE's fanciful stories. Who could've seen that coming?

Now that the dust has settled on the legal front, it's the Legislature's turn to do the right thing. That means allocating the money with interest for all the years substitute teachers were cheated out of their proper pay and adjust the go forward pay rate to reflect the legal wage the Legislature intended substitute teachers receive.