HB2541

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that residents of the county of Hawaii who have medicaid or QUEST insurance or are low-income and uninsured have inadequate access to dental care. These include some twenty-two thousand children, the medically fragile, the developmentally disabled, the mentally ill, and the frail elderly. Lack of oral health care is a prevalent unmet health need among children with special health care needs. Lack of access to dental care results in untreated dental disease, pain, the loss of teeth, poor nutrition, and death. Furthermore, periodontal disease causes diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and auto-immune disorders. Pregnant women with gum disease are at risk of delivering pre-term or low-birth weight babies.

The legislature further finds that the county of Hawaii is federally designated as a dental health professional shortage area based upon the number of available and accessible professionals that service the low-income population in that county. Furthermore, there are no state dental clinics to support acute dental services in the county of Hawaii.

The legislature further finds that residents of the county of Hawaii who require acute dental care in a hospital setting face great challenges in accessing care in an appropriate and timely manner. This fact has been identified as a major health priority by the Hawaii county oral health task force. Currently, a two-month waiting list exists at the only access point for acute care in this State for people who require hospital dentistry services, and that point of access is the Queen's Hospital on Oahu. County residents referred to Queen's Hospital for emergency purposes have included many who were in terrible pain.

The legislature further finds that the tragic and costly consequences of oral neglect in this State are enormous. As many as twenty-four thousand children traveled inter-island for dental care and over twenty per cent of these children required more than one round trip. Needless to say, these inter-island trips often required attendants to assist the children.

The purpose of this Act is to provide hospital dentistry services for acute care in the county of Hawaii through a pilot program to be operated by Hamakua Health Center, thereby providing a cost-effective measure to ensure that hospital dentistry services for acute care are available to the county of Hawaii's most vulnerable citizens.

SECTION 2. There is appropriated out of the general revenues of the State of Hawaii the sum of $200,000 or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2008-2009 for a pilot program in hospital-based dentistry services in the county of Hawaii to be operated by the Hamakua Health Center; provided that the Hamakua Health Center shall submit findings and recommendations to the legislature not later than twenty days prior to the convening of the regular session of 2009 on the number of people served under the program and feasibility of applying the program on a statewide basis.

The sum appropriated shall be expended by the department of human services for the purposes of this Act.

SECTION 3. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2008.

INTRODUCED BY:	_____________________________

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES	H.B. NO.	2541
TWENTY-FOURTH LEGISLATURE, 2008
STATE OF HAWAII