REPORT TITLE:
Hana Community Health Center


DESCRIPTION:
Appropriates $1,000,000 in FY 1999-2000 and $1,000,000 in FY
2000-2001 to the Hana community health center to allow the center
to continue its current level of operations.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES                H.B. NO.           
TWENTIETH LEGISLATURE, 1999                                
STATE OF HAWAII                                            
                                                             
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                   A  BILL  FOR  AN  ACT

MAKING AN APPROPRIATION FOR THE HANA COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTER.



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

 1      SECTION 1.  The legislature finds that the State transferred
 
 2 the Hana medical center to the Hana community health center in
 
 3 July 1997 with a guarantee to continue providing needed financial
 
 4 support for the center's essential medical programs.  This
 
 5 commitment is part of Act 263, Session Laws of Hawaii 1996, which
 
 6 provided for the transfer.  The Hana community would not have
 
 7 accepted this transfer without the commitment to assure the
 
 8 center's continued viability.
 
 9      Hana is one of the most isolated areas in the State.  During
 
10 the rainy season from October to March, the frequent storms often
 
11 wash out the roadways and disrupt electricity and telephone
 
12 service.  Hana town is fifty-seven miles from Wailuku and the
 
13 trip takes two hours along a single lane road with six hundred
 
14 seventeen turns and fifty-six one-lane bridges.  The district is
 
15 made up of small, isolated settlements scattered over more than
 
16 two hundred square miles.  Many of the villages are located a
 
17 minimum of forty-five minutes from the main town of Hana.
 
18      The Hana community health center provides a hybrid of
 
19 services.  Unlike most clinics, the center must also coordinate
 

 
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 1 activities with the ambulance services and provide assistance in
 
 2 stabilizing patients with life threatening illness or traumatic
 
 3 injury.  This needs to be done twenty-four-hours a day because
 
 4 the center is the only health care provider in the district.  The
 
 5 coordination of emergency services and provision of life support
 
 6 care is absolutely essential to the three thousand residents of
 
 7 Hana and the 500,000 tourists who visit annually.
 
 8      Hana also has the dubious distinction of consistently having
 
 9 some of the worst health and socio-economic indicators in the
 
10 State.  Native Hawaiians account for sixty-five per cent of all
 
11 the center's patients.  Hana is federally designated both as a
 
12 medically underserved population and as a health professional
 
13 shortage area.  The center currently provides prevention oriented
 
14 health care, acute and chronic care, urgent care, limited
 
15 laboratory testing, limited x-ray services, and pre-packaged
 
16 medications in lieu of a full pharmacy.  Home health care is also
 
17 provided and seniors and those with mobility problems have
 
18 benefitted from this program.  In fiscal year 1997-1998, the
 
19 center provided services to two thousand three hundred individual
 
20 patients who made over six thousand patient visits, a fourteen
 
21 per cent increase over the previous year.
 
22      The Hana community health center requires $1,000,000 in
 
23 fiscal years 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 to maintain its current
 

 
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 1 level of operations.  The purpose of this Act is to appropriate
 
 2 funds to the Hana community health center to allow it to continue
 
 3 its current operations.
 
 4      SECTION 2.  There is appropriated out of the general
 
 5 revenues of the State of Hawaii the sum of $1,000,000, or so much
 
 6 thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 1999-2000, and the
 
 7 same sum, or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year
 
 8 2000-2001, to allow the Hana community health center to continue
 
 9 its current level of operations.
 
10      SECTION 3.  The sums appropriated shall be expended by the
 
11 department of health for the purposes of this Act.
 
12      SECTION 4.  This Act shall take effect on July 1, 1999.
 
13 
 
14                              INTRODUCED BY:______________________