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Assisted Suicide? Murder investigation launched after 88-year-old woman given lethal prescription
HNN: … Honolulu police are now investigating the death of a woman in October as a murder.
The 88-year-old died after she was prescribed a lethal medication under the Our Care, Our Choice Act.
Hawaii Revised Statute Chapter 327L allows for the prescription of a lethal medication under certain requirements, including to self-administer the lethal medication for the purpose of ending a person’s life.
However, officials said that the woman did not “self-administer” the medication and that an attending doctor assisted in administering the prescribed dose.
A police investigation revealed that when the doctor administered the lethal prescription, she began choking. HPD investigators said at one point she motioned for the doctor to stop, but he continued to administer the prescription.
An autopsy conducted by the Medical Examiner’s Office has determined the manner of death to be homicide.
The office of the 73-year-old doctor was searched by the Honolulu Police Department under a warrant on Friday.
No arrests were made pending investigation….
SA: Honolulu police searched the home of a 73-year-old psychiatrist Friday for evidence
SA: HPD opens murder probe after alleged violation of Hawaii’s assisted death law | Honolulu Star-Advertiser
KHON: HPD investigates death of woman under OCOCA program
KITV: This is the first homicide investigation that involves OCOCA.
read … Murder investigation launched after 88-year-old woman given lethal prescription
51 Assisted Suicides in 2023
SA: … According to the state Department of Health’s 2023 OCOCA Annual Report to the 2024 state Legislature, 14 attending providers wrote such prescriptions in 2023, down from 17 in 2022.
There were 21 providers in 2021 and 14 in 2020.
Of the 91 qualified patients who received aid-in-dying prescriptions in 2023, 76 died.
Of the 76, 51 died due to ingesting aid-in-dying medication.
Cancer was indicated as the underlying illness for most patients who received the prescriptions, the DOH report said.
On average, it took 38 days from the first oral request to the date of receiving the written prescription. The average waiting period between the first and second oral request was 24 days.
In 2022, 60 patients were prescribed lethal drugs. In 2021, 70 patients received prescriptions. In 2020, there were 37 patients, and in 2019, 30 patients.
read … Police investigate doctor’s role in woman’s death | Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Schatz: “There’s nothing progressive about preventing people from being able to live in Hawaii.”
Borreca: … Schatz is helping to steer an estimated $1.6 billion in new federal funding for Maui’s continued recovery, saying the money goes for building permanent housing for survivors of the Lahaina fires.
“I come from a progressive tradition,” Schatz said during the interview. He explains that he sees himself as someone who came of age as an “environmental activist,” but who now is alerting “some of my fellow environmental travelers that there is something they have to understand.
“There’s nothing progressive about preventing people from being able to live in Hawaii.”
He looked back at what he said has been decades of “stopping bad things from happening. And I’ve been proud to be a part of that — whether it was Waimea Valley or Sandy Beach or Sunset Beach or the surf spot ‘Flies.’” But now restraint on development has evolved into “a labyrinth of laws and regulations … so we somehow are not able to draw a distinction between a project that is obviously beneficial to the community and those that are obviously harmful.”
Schatz admitted his comments will “likely get me into trouble,” but he wanted to set a different bar for “folks who are not primarily concerned with national cultural resources but are concerned with protecting their views and their personal conveniences.”
Schatz fears that calls about “how to develop a two-bedroom unit where you can raise a family has become a debate about reversing centuries of injustice.
“We can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” Schatz said….
read … Column: Schatz calls for new state mindset to help Lahaina rebuild | Honolulu Star-Advertiser
HTA Declares ‘Tourism Emergency’ (again)
SA: … The Hawaii Tourism Authority has declared another tourism emergency, and for only the second time since its creation in 1998 is seeking approval to use its $5 million Tourism Emergency Special Fund to shore up the industry, which is still in recovery mode.
HTA first used its emergency fund in 2023 after Gov. Josh Green declared a state of tourism emergency through his sixth emergency proclamation related to the Maui wildfires. The proclamation authorized HTA for the first time to utilize the fund, which is designed to provide emergency relief under Hawai‘i Revised Statutes 201-B 10.
The agency used $2.85 million of the first emergency fund, release in 2023, on a marketing recovery campaign. The campaign ran after the devastating Aug. 8, 2023, Maui wildfires and was designed to boost U.S. arrivals.
A portion of that amount also was used to cover shelter and luggage expenses for visitors who were stranded by the fires….
BH: Hawaii Emergency Funds Court SF and LA Visitors - Beat of Hawaii
read … HTA seeking to shore up tourism with new round of emergency funds | Honolulu Star-Advertiser
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