Report Title:

Emergency Medical Services

Description:

Appropriates funds for FY 2004-2005 as grants-in-aid for emergency medical services in the Waianae-Nanakuli, Kahaluu-Kaaawa, and urban Honolulu areas. (SD1)

THE SENATE

S.B. NO.

2721

TWENTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2004

S.D. 1

STATE OF HAWAII

 


 

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

relating to emergency medical services.

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

SECTION 1. The provision of emergency medical services is essential for the health, safety, and welfare of the people of Hawaii. The Waianae-Nanakuli, Kahaluu-Kaaawa, and urban Honolulu areas lack sufficient emergency medical services commensurate with their population growth and high rates of motor vehicle crashes, medical emergencies, and other trauma.

The purpose of this Act is to provide funding for an emergency ambulance, to include staffing, equipment, supplies, and quarters for an emergency ambulance unit in each of the Waianae-Nanakuli, Kahaluu-Kaaawa, and urban Honolulu areas and also for a third shift of ambulance service at the Makakilo ambulance unit that currently is not in service from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m.

Legislation introduced in the legislature in recent years proposed funding for additional emergency medical services in the city and county of Honolulu, which, if enacted, would have funded either a fully-equipped patient transport emergency ambulance or an emergency quick response vehicle staffed by a single mobile intensive care technician for each of the Waianae-Nanakuli, Kahaluu-Kaaawa, and urban Honolulu areas. However, only an emergency quick response vehicle was funded in Kapolei in 2000. The number of ambulance responses to 9-1-1 medical emergencies on Oahu has increased from 47,724 to 60,976 in the past three years, an increase of twenty-eight per cent, or 13,252 responses, requiring additional resources to maintain acceptable response times to emergencies.

Additionally, Hawaii finds itself in an ongoing state of heightened readiness, especially by first-responders, in response to the potential for terrorist attacks. This situation creates a need for an increased level of medical self-sustainment due to the extremely limited availability of mutual aid resources posed by our island geography. Therefore, the need for additional emergency medical resources to deal with mass-casualty incidents has now become a state imperative.

Testimony provided by the department of health, the city and county of Honolulu, and community leaders during legislative hearings in 2002 and 2003 strongly supported the additional emergency medical services requested. In addition, Resolution 01-45, passed unanimously by the Honolulu city council on March 14, 2001, urged the legislature to fund the services in the Waianae-Nanakuli, Kahaluu-Kaaawa, and urban Honolulu areas.

SECTION 2. There is appropriated out of the general revenues of the State of Hawaii the sum of $1,251,070, or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2004-2005, as a grant-in-aid for additional ambulance services in the Waianae-Nanakuli, Kahaluu-Kaaawa, and urban Honolulu areas of Oahu and a third shift of ambulance service at the Makakilo ambulance unit.

SECTION 3. The sum appropriated shall be expended by the city and county of Honolulu for the purposes of this Act.

SECTION 4. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2004.