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 S.B. No. 2035 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate funds as a grant to Wahiawa General Hospital for enhanced imaging and diagnostic equipment.

Testimony in support of this measure was submitted by the Healthcare Association of Hawaii and the Chief Executive Officer of Wahiawa General Hospital. The Department of Health submitted testimony in opposition.

Your Committee finds that Wahiawa General Hospital is a small rural acute care hospital serving central Oahu and the north shore. Wahiawa General Hospital provides a twenty-eight-bed acute care medical-surgical unit, the only senior behavioral health service in the State, a one hundred-three-bed long-term care unit, a full obstetrical care unit, a 24/7 emergency room, the State's only family medicine teaching program, and a clinic that serves primarily low income patients in Mililani. While diligent in efforts to hold down costs for its service area communities, Wahiawa General Hospital has been unable to establish a funding source for capital equipment purchases.

Your Committee finds that it is in the public interest to assist Wahiawa General Hospital to upgrade its imaging capabilities by funding the purchase of computerized tomography equipment, picture archiving and communication systems, computed radiography, equipment and ultrasound equipment.

Your Committee has amended this measure by inserting the amount of the grant request, $2,200,000, and specifying that the funds are to be used for improvements to the diagnostic imaging department including equipment, installation, infrastructure and service.

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. 2035, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2035, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.