HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

H.C.R. NO.

99

TWENTY-FIRST LEGISLATURE, 2002

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 
   


HOUSE CONCURRENT

RESOLUTION

 

requesting the state health planning and development agency to exempt the establishment of an emergency acute care facility in west Maui from the certificate of need process and requesting the appropriate agencies of the State and the county of Maui to undertake any and all measures at law pertaining to any and all regulations and ordinances necessary to facilitate the clearly established need for an emergency acute care facility for West Maui sufficient to have priority over and superseding any existing regulations or ordinances which may exist.

 

 

WHEREAS, Maui county is poorly served in the number of acute care facilities and the number of licensed acute care facility beds; and

WHEREAS, however, according to the State Health Planning and Development Agency, Maui has had by far the highest acute care facility bed occupancy rate in the State every year since 1990; and

WHEREAS, including average daily visitor counts, there is only one acute care facility available for every eighty thousand people in Maui county, as opposed to one such facility for every fifty-seven thousand five hundred people statewide; and

WHEREAS, in terms of acute care facility beds, one bed must serve every eight hundred fourteen people on Maui, as opposed to the statewide average of five hundred twenty-eight people; and

WHEREAS, the location of these beds and facilities is also important due to the issue of accessibility, especially in West Maui, which is geographically isolated and where a major disaster or accident resulting in the closure of the road to Maui Memorial Hospital would be catastrophic; and

WHEREAS, visitors to Maui constitute a significant portion of Maui's population and West Maui is home to not only twenty per cent of the island's individual housing units, but also more than fifty-five per cent of the island's available visitor units, including hotels, condominiums, bed and breakfast units, and apartments; and

WHEREAS, there is currently no twenty-four-hour medical emergency center in West Maui and, in fact, no medical facility that accepts ambulance patients at any time; and

WHEREAS, there is no facility in West Maui that can treat cardiopulmonary emergencies or victims of accidents with life-threatening injuries; and

WHEREAS, the nearest emergency medical facility available to people in West Maui, both residents and visitors alike, is at Maui Memorial Hospital -- up to thirty-five miles away from Lahaina and Kapalua -- and is accessible only by a two-lane road which, in favorable traffic, requires a forty-five-minute drive and which sometimes takes hours or is impossible if the road is impassable due to high surf or repair or an accident; and

WHEREAS, the clear and immediate need for an acute care facility to be located in West Maui in order to serve all the people of West Maui, both visitor and resident alike, is in the interest of the people of the State; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Twenty-first Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2002, the Senate concurring, that the State Health Planning and Development Agency is requested to exempt the establishment of an emergency acute care facility in West Maui from the certificate of need process pursuant to section 323D-54(16), Hawaii Revised Statutes, and requesting the appropriate agencies of the State and the county of Maui to undertake any and all measures at law pertaining to any and all regulations and ordinances necessary to facilitate the clearly established need for an emergency acute care facility for West Maui sufficient to have priority over and superseding any existing regulations or ordinances which may exist; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the Administrator and the Chairperson and members of the Statewide Health Coordinating Council, the Director of Health, the Mayor and members of the Council of the County of Maui, and the West Maui Taxpayers Association.

 

 

 

OFFERED BY:

_____________________________

Report Title:

Acute Care Facility; West Maui