Phone lines out
for 3 days at
Kahuku Hospital

The hospital's staff used cell phones
until repairs could be made

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By Leila Fujimori
lfujimori@starbulletin.com

Telephone service at Kahuku Hospital was down for three days through yesterday afternoon, causing great frustration and inconvenience to the North Shore facility's staff and patients, officials said.

"We haven't had any life-threatening problems that were a result of it being down," said Don Olden, the hospital's chief executive officer. "We feel extraordinarily lucky that it didn't occur."

Incoming and outgoing calls could not be received or made by the 25-bed hospital, which serves a population of 18,000 from Kaaawa to Waimea Bay. Service went out Saturday afternoon and was restored yesterday at 2 p.m.

The hospital staff was forced to use cell phones, five of which were purchased by the hospital, until the repairs were made.

Verizon Hawaii spokeswoman Ann Nishida said the recurring telephone problem was due to the hospital's own PBX, or central calling system.

Until yesterday the hospital did not have a service contract with Verizon. Olden signed a service contract yesterday afternoon.

Nishida said Verizon had dispatched technicians to the hospital yesterday after servicing its customers with contracts.

She said the new contract would provide service within four hours the next time a problem occurred.

Before the problem was fixed, Olden said: "It boggles my mind that Verizon is not putting the hospital as a priority. The hospital is a quasi-public entity that the public relies on."

He said the private, nonprofit hospital did not have the money for a service contract until recently.