Bad experience
at doctor’s office
My 84-year-old mother needed to update her handicap placard, but to do that her doctor needed to fill in a couple of blanks and sign it, then return it to the county.
My mother doesn’t drive anymore, so she depends on her children to take her here and there when possible. So she filled out the renewal form and mailed it back to her doctor’s office along with an addressed and stamped envelope to the county.
A few days later, the doctor’s office called her stating that she needed to come into the office to pay them $10 to process this form! What process? All that was needed was the doctor’s signature, then put it in the already-stamped, addressed envelope she provided to them and mail it off to the county.
In order to get this renewal, she had to be picked up by her daughter, who had to change her work schedule and doesn’t live in Volcano, then take her to Hilo to go pay this fee.
My mother is on a fixed income, as many elderly are, but obviously this doctor’s office does not take that into consideration, nor do they think about the expense to get her there. All because they want to milk her for more money, saying it’s a processing fee!
Dr. (Erin) Kalua, you and your office staff should be ashamed of yourselves! Used to be a time when doctors saw patients as people and not — what’s the word? — “cha-ching.”
Jennifer Dayton
Mountain View
Regarding Banyan Drive
The article about Uncle Billy’s hotel and the cats on Banyan Drive (Sept. 19, Tribune-Herald) has a few factual errors and omissions.
The cats were not dumped at Uncle Billy’s, they are a natural expansion of the large population of feral cats that have been living on Banyan Drive for years.
They are ultimately the responsibility of Animal Control to deal with as strays — which, of course, they never did, since they have been incompetent these past few decades in catching stray animals or knowing what to do with them once they have them (other than kill them).
The responsibility for the old buildings on Banyan Drive was that any “improvements” made in the 65-year lease period had to be removed by the lessee at their cost by the end of the lease.
The article says: “There’s a lot of abandoned properties in this stretch right here,” she told the Tribune-Herald. “The county and the state and the (Department of Land and Natural Resources) have done nothing about it.”
In fact, the state and especially Gordon Heit at DLNR, is responsible for handling the Banyan Drive properties incompetently for at least 10 years. They and six of our local judges did everything they could to allow the slumlords of Banyan Drive to be irresponsible, with the end result being our current ugly and dangerous situation.
The old lessees made tons of money and left unpaid bills (over $300,000 in electrical bills at Country Club Hawaii down the street alone) — and worse, they left the buildings to rot and for squatters and critters.
All of the Banyan Drive buildings could have been rehabilitated and repurposed, if caught in time.
In my opinion, the CCH building could still be saved and best used for affordable residences for elders, but watch: Our elected and appointed officials will let it become your problem. Or rather, they already have.
Carl F. Oguss
Hilo
