STAND. COM. REP. NO. 760

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 1281

       S.D. 1

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2015

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 1281 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO EMERGENCY MEDICAL CARE,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to appropriate moneys to expand emergency medical services and ambulance services in the Moanalua, Aliamanu, Red Hill, Salt Lake, and Foster Village areas of Oahu.

The Department of Health submitted written comments on this measure.

Your Committee finds that Moanalua, Aliamanu, Red Hill, Salt Lake, and Foster Village are high density areas.  Additionally, the City and County of Honolulu Emergency Medical Services only operates twenty ambulances on the entire island of Oahu.  In 2014, the Moanalua, Aliamanu, Red Hill, Salt Lake, and Foster Village areas experienced 4,418 calls for emergency medical services.  Between 2001 and 2014, response times to emergency calls from these areas increased from 8.46 minutes to 9.4 minutes.  Your Committee recognizes that increased emergency response times can mean the difference between life and death for persons who need emergency medical attention.

Your Committee requests that should subsequent Standing Committees decide to hear this measure, subsequent Standing Committees consider using the emergency services special fund as an alternative means of financing for this appropriation if sufficient moneys are available in that special fund.  Your Committee also suggests that the subsequent committees request the Department of Health to provide a more accurate estimate of the amount of funding needed to fulfill the purposes of this measure.

     Your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1)  Changing the appropriation amounts to unspecified sums; and

(2)  Changing the effective date to July 1, 2050, to facilitate further discussion on the measure.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1281, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1281, S.D. 1.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Ways and Means,

________________________________

JILL N. TOKUDA, Chair