STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2597

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 2160

       S.D. 2

 

 

 

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fourth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2008

State of Hawaii

 

Madam:

 

     Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 2160, S.D. 1, entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HEALTH,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose of this measure is to enact recommendations made by the task force convened by Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 117, S.D. 1, H.D. 1, 2006, to "evaluate and recommend possible procedural, statutory, and public policy changes to minimize the census at Hawaii State Hospital and promote community based health services for forensic patients."

 

     Specifically, this measure:

 

     (1)  Requires the Department of Health to produce an annual report on forensic patients;

 

     (2)  Requires yearly court status hearings for individuals ordered to be conditionally released or hospitalized as inpatients by the mental health court;

 

     (3)  Reduces the minimum length of hospitalization from ninety days to thirty days for individuals who are recommitted after conditional release;

 

     (4)  Provides the alternative of further temporary hospitalization instead of proceeding immediately to a revocation of a person's conditional release when a person is in violation of the conditions of the conditional release; and

 

     (5)  Makes an appropriation for mental health court operations.

 

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Hawaii Government Employees Association.  The Judiciary and the Department of Health submitted comments.

 

     Your Committee has amended this measure by:

 

(1)  Including language from S.B. No. 3071 that authorizes the Director of Health to petition the court on behalf of any individual served by the Department of Health for discharge from conditional release in appropriate cases;

 

(2)  Clarifying that the period to be covered in the Department of Health's annual report is the fiscal year and that the annual report is to be submitted no later than twenty days prior to the convening of each regular legislative session;

 

(3)  Clarifying that the annual report's information on the underlying crimes of committed persons should include information on the types of offenses committed in addition to the grade of offenses committed; and

 

(4)  By making technical nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity, consistency, and style.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2160, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2160, S.D. 2.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Ways and Means,

 

 

 

____________________________

ROSALYN H. BAKER, Chair