Hospice Maui Files Appeal Over Outside Competitor

Carrie Anne Campos, Hospice Maui’s Office Manager and granddaughter of Hospice Patient celebrates generosity of the Maui Community. Courtesy photo.

By Wendy Osher

Hospice Maui has filed an appeal over a recent decision that allows an outside competitor permission to provide hospice services on Maui.

Islands Hospice, a business that currently operates hospice services on Oʻahu, was granted a Certificate of Need from the State Health Planning and Development Agency in July, which effectively allows them to proceed with expansion plans to Maui.

Hospice Maui, a business that has been providing in-home service on Maui for 30 years, has expansion plans of its own that call for construction to begin in January on a hospice home for in-patient care at its current site in Wailuku.

The Islands Hospice facility is also planned for placement in central Maui.

Officials with Hospice Maui say the application filed by Islands Hospice was granted through, “an abbreviated administrative review process.”

“Administrative review bypasses the standard review process, in which input is gathered and considered by a panel consisting of Maui citizens, called the Tri-Isle Subarea Council,” said Hospice Maui officials in a statement.

“The CON process is intended to give communities a voice in decisions that will affect them,” said Greg LaGoy, CEO of Hospice Maui in an agency issued press release.

“Hospice care touches people deeply in their most vulnerable moments, and I believe that a proposal that might have unintended impacts on that care deserves to be properly considered by this community in a standard review process, and not just by the staff of SHPDA’s Oʻahu office,” he said.

The appeal, filed by Hospice Maui in Circuit Court, seeks a standard review, so that Maui residents can participate in deciding whether it is “in the best interest of this community for another hospice program to operate here,” according to Hospice Maui.

Islands Hospice Chief Executive Officer Michael Duick, MD, shared his vision in a statement earlier this year saying, “We look forward to bringing our care and compassion to Maui. Having personally practiced medicine on Maui, I am acutely aware of the need for increased access to end-of-life care there.”

Executives say the service will increase access to end-of-life care on the island and help meet the need for hospice inpatient beds.