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. 2721 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate funds as grants-in-aid for emergency medical services in the Waianae-Nanakuli, Kahaluu-Kaaawa, and urban Honolulu areas.

Testimony in support of this measure was received from the Department of Health, the City and County of Honolulu, the United Public Worker (UPW), the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers (SHOPO), and American Medical Response.

Your Committee finds that there is an urgent need to expand emergency medical services on Oahu to meet the nationally recognized guidelines of an eight-minute advanced life support response time to medical emergencies. The remote areas of Waianae-Nanakuli and Kahaluu-Kaaawa, as well as parts of urban Honolulu, lack sufficient emergency medical services in proportion to their population growth and high rates of emergencies.

Your Committee has amended this measure to provide an adequate appropriation, as well as make technical, non-substantive 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. 2721, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2721, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.