RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, the aftermath of a death, serious injury, or crime involving trauma presents a cleanup situation that is dangerous to handle without proper training and protection, and creates various legal issues and liability; and

WHEREAS, with respect to cleaning and infection control, trauma scenes may pose situations that are found in operating rooms, emergency rooms, response scenes requiring emergency medical technicians, and other patient care areas; and

WHEREAS, trauma scenes may nevertheless take on a variety of other sites and special situations that differ from applications in ordinary health care settings; and

WHEREAS, the difficult and often unpleasant task of cleaning up blood and other infectious waste at trauma scenes should therefore be conducted by trained trauma scene waste management practitioners to ensure that infection control and cleaning follow proper techniques for trauma scene clean-up; and

WHEREAS, a trauma scene waste management practitioner is a person or company that commercially provides safe clean-up and disposal of bodily fluid residues and other infectious waste from scenes of serious human injury, illness, or death; and

WHEREAS, it is in the interests of the health and safety of the public and the solid waste industry to regulate the handling and treatment of waste that, but for contamination with large quantities of human blood or body fluids as a result of death, injury, or illness, would be solid waste; and

WHEREAS, in the interest of the safe and uniform management of trauma scene waste, practitioners of trauma scene waste management should be subject to regulation by the Department of Health; and

WHEREAS, there is a need to ensure the proper handling and disposal of infectious and trauma scene waste, including bloodborne pathogens and biological and infectious waste, throughout Hawaii; and

WHEREAS, House Bill No. was introduced in the House of Representatives during the Regular Session of 2003 as a vehicle to provide for the regulation of trauma scene waste management practitioners; and

WHEREAS, section 26H-6, Hawaii Revised Statutes, requires that new regulatory measures being considered for enactment that, if enacted, would subject unregulated professions and vocations to licensing or other regulatory controls are to be referred to the Auditor for analysis; and

WHEREAS, that section further requires referral to the Auditor to be by concurrent resolution that identifies a specific legislative bill to be analyzed, and that the analysis set forth the probable effects of the proposed regulatory measure, assess whether its enactment is consistent with the policies set forth in section 26H-2, Hawaii Revised Statutes, and assess alternative forms of regulation; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Twenty-second Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2003, the Senate concurring, that the Auditor is requested to perform a sunrise review of the regulation of trauma scene waste management practitioners as provided in House Bill No. , as introduced during the Regular Session of 2003; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Auditor is requested to report findings and recommendations to the Legislature no later than twenty days prior to the convening of the Regular Session of 2004; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a certified copy of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the Auditor.

Report Title:

Trauma Scene Waste Management Practitioners; Sunrise Review