Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2002

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Tourism and Intergovernmental Affairs and Health and Human Services, to which was referred S.B. No. 2904 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate funds for a second ambulance to service the Waianae Coast.

Testimony in support of this measure was received from the Department of Health, City and County of Honolulu Emergency Services Department, and American Medical Response.

Your Committees have heard that between 1997 and 2001, the number of calls for ambulance services in the Waianae area have increased by approximately twenty per cent. Responses from units outside the Waianae area have gone up twenty seven per cent for the same period. As a result, more than one in four calls to the Waianae area exceed the State's response time standard, which stipulates that responses should not exceed an average of fifteen minutes.

Your Committees support this measure as a means of providing for the safety and peace of mind of Waianae Coast residents.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Tourism and Intergovernmental Affairs and Health and Human Services that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2904 and recommend that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.