Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2004

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Health, to which was referred S.B. No. 2088 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to delete the term "terminal condition" as the sole circumstance when "comfort care only-do not resuscitate" protocols may be initiated by in-the-field emergency response personnel.

Testimony in support of this measure was received from the Department of Health, Compassion in Dying in Hawaii, a member of the Hawaii County Council, and from a Maui County paramedic.

Your Committee finds that it is important to respect and protect individual end of life decisions and this measure clarifies that it is the individual's decision, and not a physician directive, that determines whether an individual should be resuscitated should his or her heart stop beating or he or she stop breathing.

Your Committee has amended the bill by making technical nonsubstantive amendments.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Health that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2088, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2088, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs.