STAND. COM. REP. NO. 100

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 576

       S.D. 1

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2015

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committee on Health, to which was referred S.B. No. 576 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HEALTH,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to appropriate funds as a grant to the Bay Clinic, Inc., for a mobile health unit to service the Puna district due to the threat of inaccessibility from the lava flow.

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney, County of Hawai‘i; Goodwill Industries of Hawaii, Inc.; Hawaii Primary Care Association; Bay Clinic, Inc.; United Public Workers, Local 646; and one individual.  Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Department of Health.

     Your Committee finds that about 8,200 Puna residents are living on the south side of the June 27, 2014 lava flow and will be cut off from the rest of the Puna district when the lava crosses Highway 130.  Although Bay Clinic, Inc., will continue operations out of its two Pahoa-based health centers, certain services, such as dental care, will not be readily available without a mobile health unit capable of such services.  In light of this natural disaster, the availability of a mobile health unit is the most economical option to ensuring access to comprehensive primary medical care and dental care.

     Your Committee has amended this measure by:

     (1)  Inserting the contents of S.B. No. 580, Regular Session of 2015, which appropriates funds to the Puna Community Medical Center for a mobile health unit and an annex medical clinic to service South Pahoa due to the threat of inaccessibility from the lava flow; and

     (2)  Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

     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. 576, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 576, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Health,

____________________________

JOSH GREEN, Chair