Friday night games on Kauai to move for fledgling season
LIHUE, Kauai — Friday night lights will shine for high school football games on Kauai through September, but the games will move to Saturday afternoons during the rest of a seabird’s fledgling season.
Stadiums lights can create obstacles for endangered Newell’s shearwater fledglings, which are attracted to bright lights as they leave mountain nesting sites on the island for the ocean.
The young birds native to Kauai typically use the moon for guidance, but can become fixated on stadium lights, circling the lights until they fall. Once on the ground, the birds can become disoriented and are subject to other threats, like predators and cars.
Kauai County and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have worked for several years to find a way to allow Friday night games while minimizing the risk to the seabirds, said Dan Dennison, a spokesman with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.
“We developed a risk calculator for the county and USFWS that considered the proposed time of each potential game relative to the fledgling season, the phase of the moon and the time that the moon rises on that particular night,” Dennison said. “Considering all this data, night games on the last three weekends of September were considered low risk. Night games in October and November were considered high risk.”
The fledgling season runs through mid-December.
“They are also a vital contributor to the environment of our island, transporting marine nutrients from the sea where they feed to the top of our watersheds where they breed,” Dennison said. “By working with the county and our partners at USFWS on this issue, we hope that we can both protect our endangered seabirds and continue to enjoy some night football games.”
Survey: Hawaii loses 51 doctors as shortage continues
HONOLULU — Hawaii lost 51 full-time doctors over the last year, continuing a physician shortage across the state, according to a workforce survey.
The latest physician workforce survey by the University of Hawaii shows the state has about 2,900 full-time doctors, about 800 doctors short of the number needed across all specialties.
This year’s loss is the first since 2014 when 92 doctors left the workforce, according to the survey. The state added 75 doctors last year, 97 in 2016 and four in 2015.
Oahu is short 384 doctors, and the Big Island needs 213, according to the survey. Maui needs 141 and Kauai needs 59.
A number of factors have contributed to the shortage, including better pay elsewhere, complicated insurance payment systems and requirements, and increasingly burdensome medical regulations, said university professor Kelley Withy, who conducts the survey.
“This just makes it more challenging for patients to get the care they need when they need it, which could end in significant health impairments and patient suffering,” Withy said.
When 67-year-old Poni Medeiros was diagnosed with advanced-stage cancer in March, her daughter Nicole Pagan called nearly a dozen oncologists. The earliest appointment the Maui resident could schedule was more than two months later, Pagan said.
“Those days were spent not only with me wrapping my head around the diagnosis not knowing what it meant, but also frantically calling anybody,” Pagan told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
Pagan’s mother died about two weeks later. Because Medeiros wasn’t able to see an oncologist, the family doesn’t know where the root of the cancer was, Pagan said.
Ex-Honolulu chief’s wife resigns as prosecutor before trial
HONOLULU — The wife of a former Honolulu chief is resigning as a deputy prosecutor nearly a year after a grand jury indicted the couple on corruption-related charges.
The Honolulu prosecuting attorney’s office issued a one-sentence news release Monday: “Katherine Kealoha has resigned as a Deputy Prosecutor.”
Kealoha’s husband is former police Chief Louis Kealoha. He agreed to retire amid a federal investigation.
The Kealohas are awaiting two trials. One trial is for allegations they orchestrated the framing of a relative for a mailbox theft. Current and former police officers will be tried with the couple in that trial.
Another trial against the Kealohas will be for bank fraud and identity theft, including allegations Katherine Kealoha bilked family members, banks and children whose trusts she controlled.