Hilo may get new for-profit health and hospice agencies

The for-profit, Los Angeles-based Victoria Home Health Services plans two new home health-care and hospice agencies in Hilo on the Big Island. Hawaii Victoria Home Health Services and Hawaii Victoria Hospice Services have secured a two-year lease for an office at 15-671 16th St. in Keaau.

Hawaii Victoria Hospice would provide outpatient hospice services to the terminally ill. Hospice of Hilo, a private nonprofit that has been in the community since 1983, already serves Hilo.

Hawaii Victoria Home Health would provide in-home skilled-nursing care, physical, occupational or speech therapy and other medical social services to East Hawaii residents, particularly the elderly or injured.

The agencies hope to launch services by this summer, according to certificate-of-need applications filed in late 2008 with the State Health Planning and Development Agency in Honolulu.

SHPDA must grant a certificate of need before either can apply for its license and Medicare certification with the state Department of Health, a process that would take an additional three months. If approved, each division said it plans to hire 10 employees in the beginning months of service and add more staff as demand increases. Total startup costs are estimated at $150,000, according to the filings.