STAND. COM. REP. 363

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2003

RE: H.B. No. 706

 

 

 

Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2003

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Health, to which was referred H.B. No. 706 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO OFFENSES AGAINST THE PERSON,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this bill is to provide a deterrent to inmates and other patients against committing an act of violence against health care professionals by:

(1) Making violence committed against a health care professional who is engaged in the performance of a duty or is within a health care facility an offense of assault in the second degree; and

(2) Providing that a person commits the offense of terroristic threatening in the first degree if the person commits terroristic threatening against a health care professional.

The Department of Public Safety, Hawaii Pacific Health, Healthcare Association of Hawaii, Hawaii Government Employees Association, Hawaii Nurses' Association, and Kaiser Permanente testified in support of this bill. The Office of the Public Defender opposed this bill.

 

Statistics have found that health care professionals are subjected to a greater risk of work-related threats and violence. Your Committee believes this measure will serve as a deterrent as well as improve the ability to prosecute offenders.

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 H.B. No. 706 and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary.

 

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

 

____________________________

DENNIS A. ARAKAKI, Chair