Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2004

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Human Services and Health, to which was referred S.B. No. 3041 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to allow parents or guardians to admit individuals under the age of 18 to nonemergency treatment facilities without the consent of the individual.

Testimony in favor of the measure was submitted by the Hawaii Psychiatric Medical Association and two individuals. The Department of Health submitted testimony in opposition.

Your Committees find that youths who are experiencing mental health disorders for the first time are often unwilling to admit they are ill and need treatment. Schizophrenia is an example of a serious mental illness that often strikes male youths in their middle to late teen years. Other significant disorders that pose problems with self-recognition are depression or bi-polar disorder. It is often found that youths with a mental disorder will use drugs and alcohol to alleviate their symptoms. Parents are placed in a situation of witnessing their child deteriorate, begin to fail at school, or struggle to maintain a socially acceptable standard of behavior. This measure would provide a mechanism for needed parental intervention.

Upon further consideration, your Committees have amended this bill by clarifying the language to address legal concerns and adding language that treatment be based on the criteria set by the American Psychiatric Association or the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Technical, nonsubstantive amendments were made for the purposes of style.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Human Services and Health that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 3041, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 3041, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs.