Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2006

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Health, to which was referred H.B. No. 2126, H.D. 2, entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate funds for a advanced life support emergency medical services ambulance unit that would provide sixteen-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week emergency response services to the areas Lower Mililani, Waipio Gentry, Waikele, Crestview, East Waipahu, Waiawa, and the Pearl City industrial area on Oahu.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Honolulu Emergency Services Department and the Mililani Town Anti-Drug Committee. Your Committee received testimony expressing concerns with the measure from the Department of Health.

Your Committee finds that providing for an emergency medical services ambulance, as opposed to a rapid response vehicle, would be more beneficial to the residents of this part of Oahu because it would be able to provide a broader range of emergency services. Additionally, the Honolulu Emergency Services Department recommended that the ambulance be stationed out of Waipio Gentry instead of Mililani because there is safer, faster access onto and off of the freeway and major thoroughfares.

Accordingly, your Committee has amended this measure by authorizing a sixteen-hour emergency medical services ambulance to be stationed out of the Waipio Gentry area. Your Committee further amended this measure by inserting a blank appropriation amount.

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 H.B. No. 2126, H.D. 2, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2126, H.D. 2, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.