REFORM SYSTEM

PHARMACISTS SHOULD NOT PRESCRIBE DRUGS

The Honolulu Advertiser commentary titled "Let pharmacists prescribe certain drugs" (Oct. 24) states that pharmacists should be allowed to prescribe medications to improve access to healthcare in underserved rural areas and reduce healthcare costs.

The passage of medical liability reform by the state Legislature would go a long way in recruiting and retaining the physician workforce we need. Every day, Hawai'i is losing physicians to states with such reforms, early retirement and burnout. Our only state trauma center in Honolulu is turning away patients because it lacks an adequate staff of surgeons and other physicians to provide high-risk but life-saving procedures.

Pharmacists are not trained or educated to diagnose illness and should not have the responsibility of prescribing medication.

We should not resort to reducing the qualifications required to prescribe medications to improve access to care. All citizens, including those in rural areas, are no less deserving of quality medical care.

Pharmacists have a valuable and key role in providing quality healthcare. However, the purpose of their education is not to diagnose illness. Contact your legislators today and tell them you support medical liability reform.

NOT NAMELESS

'HOMELESS RESIDENTS' WOULD BE BETTER TERM

Thank you for the Nov. 7 front-page article on new and continuing initiatives to provide shelters for "the homeless." However, I must take issue with your continued use of the term "the homeless."

That usage simply reinforces our image of these Hawai'i residents as a nameless, faceless, voiceless mass, a client, dependent population living on handouts. Please try such phrases as "homeless citizens," "homeless residents," "our homeless neighbors."

There is probably as much diversity among homeless residents as there is among the rest of us.

Which one of us may not be just a paycheck away from losing our place of residence?

"There but for the grace of God go I."

HATEFUL WORDS

PROTECT YOUR KIDS FROM DOG LANGUAGE

I don't think one letter in the Nov. 4 paper got it ("Don't be so quick to judge The Dog").

It's not about judgment of Dog or Christian beliefs. It's about a man who puts himself in the public eye and calls himself a readjusted criminal and a role model for our kids. Talks the talk but falls very short of any of the above.

Just because local people used racial slurs to Mainlanders or locals, does it make it right? We all know the answer.

Using that language is not only wrong but very sensitive to some and maybe all. Protect your kids from such hateful words. They truly are the future.

CHAPMAN'S REAPING WHAT HE'S BEEN SOWING

A number of letters in support of "Dog" Chapman suggest that, although Chapman used the "N-word" in a phone conversation with his son, that conversation was private. The writers feel we should take that into account when judging Chapman's racism.

They also point out that his son, who recorded the conversation, did so with the apparent goal of making money from its release. That one person would exploit another's private life for money should keep us from throwing stones at Chapman, the writers say.

Perhaps.

If so, then I hope these writers, like me, never watch Chapman's show in which the cameras are rolling as he chases down real folks and makes their transgressions public — not just for his job, but for the extra money reality TV offers.

Dog is a victim of his own form of money-making. Right or wrong, he's been bitten by the beast that he chooses to dine upon.

And others choose to watch.

AKAKA BILL

GRASSROOT INSTITUTE GIVING US THE 'BIG LIE'

Tom Macdonald shows his true colors as a member of the right-wing Grassroot Institute of Hawai'i by twisting the 2001 report by the Hawai'i State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (Letters, Nov. 8).

In attacking fellow HISAC members Amy Agbayani and Linda Colburn, Macdonald slices and dices a portion of the 2001 report to push the Grassroot "big lie" that the Akaka bill will lead to secession. Land grabs and gambling are also part of the Grassroot campaign of misinformation and scare tactics.

Macdonald also falsely claims the previous HISAC was "stacked" with Akaka bill supporters. Not true. The previous HISAC was formed years before the Akaka bill was ever an issue.

These contortions are not a surprise, because it's what Macdonald and his fellow HISAC members with ties to Grassroot do all the time.

Grassroot Institute is the group that commissioned "push" polls claiming most Hawai'i residents oppose the Akaka bill. When the U.S. House voted to approve the Akaka bill, Congressman Neil Abercrombie took to the House floor and denounced the Grassroot polls cited by opponents.

The legitimate polls, including one in The Honolulu Advertiser, continue to show majority support for the Akaka bill in spite of the ongoing misinformation campaign.

That gets us to Macdonald's second point in defending the Commission on Civil Rights stacking the HISAC in an effort to get the Hawai'i committee to oppose the Akaka bill. If the majority in Hawai'i favors the Akaka bill, how is it that the current HISAC, with Macdonald, Bill Burgess and others leading the charge, is reflective of our state's population?

PAY HIKE HOSTAGE

RANDOM DRUG TESTING OF TEACHERS IS WRONG

I am a squeaky-clean seventh-grade math teacher at Waiakea Intermediate School in Hilo. I did not even smoke pot during the hippie '60s. I do not smoke or drink. I care about my students.

The teacher random drug testing is wrong on so many levels: unconstitutional (Fourth Amendment search and seizures); expensive (I don't want any money taken from my school's budget for a drug testing program); subject to false positives (affecting specific teachers egregiously); lack of reason to do it (any evidence that teachers using drugs have harmed students?).

And of course, there is the "political dirty trick" of holding the teachers' salary raise hostage in order to implement it.

It seems almost impossible that Gov. Linda Lingle, who has been so supportive of the schools, is actually committed to this. Say it isn't so, Linda!

DRUGS AT SCHOOL

WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL OVER LOCKER SEARCHES?

Much has been written recently, including your recent editorial, about school locker searches and the use of drug-sniffing dogs.

You correctly point out that the locker belongs to the school. The searches could be authorized at the time the locker is assigned through the use of a simple form stating that all lockers are subject to random searches. This form would be signed by the parent, who, I think, would be only too pleased that the school is looking out for the child's welfare. If the form is not signed, then a locker is not assigned and the student has to carry all excess baggage from classroom to classroom.

A locker is not a space to hide something, and it is certainly not a place for drug sellers to keep their inventory. Due cause for a search can easily be established through the use of a drug-sniffing dog. Unfortunately, they would not catch handguns, knives or explosives.

I have taught at a school where dogs were brought in for random searches. It was all explained up-front to the students, and there were no problems.

Teachers and administrators see the students for only a few hours each day. Contrary to expectations, they have neither the time nor responsibility to provide substitute parental control. The best that the schools can do is to control their space and environment so that students are not a danger to themselves or others.

So let's stop the hand-wringing and proceed to solving the issue. After all, look at what happens daily at our airports — bodily searches, luggage searches and being subjected to sniffing dogs.

STAPH

WHAT WE DON'T SEE GOING ON IN HOSPITALS

I know full well the dangers of staph. In Arizona, my father died after surgery from this deadly infection. Only after his demise did we find out that the hospital he was in had the highest staph-related deaths in the state.

Those statistics obviously were only the reported cases. While he was in the ICU, we witnessed his breathing tube fall to the floor. The respiratory therapist picked it up and shoved it back down his nose without cleaning it first.

Another time while changing his bandages, a nurse dropped her glove on the ground and proceeded to pick it up and put it back on. We insisted she use a clean glove, and she unhappily obliged.

These are just the irresponsible behaviors we witnessed; I shudder to think what went on when we weren't watching.

Simple common sense goes a long way in saving a loved one.