He said the void of long relied on services will be felt throughout the community. It will boil down to this: Patients will have to travel farther for treatment.

"These are things we hear from neighbors in the Pacific. They come to Hawaii or go to the mainland for treatment, and now we will experience that ourselves locally," Clairmont said.

Clairmont also pointed out that part of his job is emergency response during a disaster and the shutdown creates a void, that is not good.

"Things could still happen. We depended on those facilities as part of our system. we have lost those staff and those beds," he said.

Clairmont said his own staff is on alert mode during this critical time,

Governor Neil Abercrombie called together heath care providers from the various hospitals Tuesday afternoon asking for a status report and wanting to know what the state could do to help.