Maui Health Forum to Examine Needs, Resources

Hawaiian Canoe Club, hale. Photo by Wendy Osher.

By Maui Now Staff

The public is invited to a health forum Feb. 21 to identify Maui health needs.

Pastor Greg Dela Cruz, of the Child & Family Service and the Neighborhood Place of Wailuku, will host the free event from 6 to 7:30 p.m. upstairs at Hawaiian Canoe Club.

The forum is part of a Community Wellness Capacity project designed to discuss Valley Isle health needs and the resources to meet those needs, with emphases on low-income, rural, native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities.

Based in part on forum feedback, the project will schedule a spring series of mobile-clinic health screenings to be held in conjunction with the non-profit Project Vision Hawaii bus.

A health screening, up to an hour in length, will offer retinal, blood-pressure, cholesterol and glucose assessments; optional counseling for smoking cessation and/or hygienic tattooing; and Community Alliance for Mental Health counseling for concerns, such as depression and PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder.

Sites of the free screenings will include the Prince Kuhio Day Festival at Paukukalo Hawaiian homestead park on March 30, and Hui No Ke Ola Pono’s 11th annual Hana Health Fair on April 13.

WE, Hui for Health is sponsoring the Feb. 21 forum. WE is a statewide, non-profit consortium of health-related public, private and nonprofit entities.