Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2005

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.C.R. No. 93, S.D. 1, entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to urge the Department of Health, in cooperation with Hawaii Health Systems Corporation, to facilitate the convening of a stakeholder group to develop and implement crisis stabilization services at the Maui Memorial Medical Center.

Your Committee finds that there is an urgent need in Maui for a system of psychiatric care for children and adolescents. Since the Molokini unit of the Maui Memorial Medical Center closed in July 2004, Maui families and their children in crisis are forced to seek help on Oahu. This delay in treatment and the lack of available on-call psychiatrists specializing in child and adolescent care exacerbate the crisis. Further, the transportation and hotel costs of seeking treatment on Oahu pose an undue hardship on these families.

Following the close of the Molokini Unit, the Department of Health and the Hawaii Health Systems Corporation started working closely to reestablish child and adolescent psychiatry services on Maui. A crisis stabilization model is being proposed as a means of meeting urgent child and adolescent psychiatric health care needs without incurring the ongoing high costs of a full acute inpatient unit. Proponents envision crisis stabilization units in central Maui and Hilo that would focus on stabilizing the urgent medical crisis through intensive family treatment and psychiatric consultation.

Your Committee has amended the measure by making technical nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and style.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee concurs with the intent and purpose of S.C.R. No. 93, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends its adoption in the form attached hereto as S.C.R. No. 93, S.D. 2.