STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2582

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 2317

       S.D. 2

 

 

 

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2016

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 2317, S.D. 1, entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HEALTH,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to improve the State's knowledge of risk factors for child and maternal deaths.

 

Specifically, the measure:

 

(1)  Requires the Director of Health to submit annual reports to the Legislature on child death and maternal death reviews;

 

(2)  Requires medical facilities to provide information relating to maternal and perinatal deaths to the Department of Health, Hawaii Medical Association, or in-hospital staff committees, and to immunize them from liability for providing the information; and

 

(3)  Appropriates funds for the Department of Health to conduct child death reviews and to implement a program for the performance of maternal death reviews.

 

     Your Committee received written comments in support of this measure from the Department of Human Services, the Department of Health, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, March of Dimes, The Kapiolani Child Protection Center, Hawaii Pacific Health, Kapiolani Medical Center, Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest and Hawaii, Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies, Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women, and two individuals.

 

     Your Committee finds that as a vital public health component in the State, comprehensive multidisciplinary child death and maternal death reviews are needed to improve systems of care and prevent child and maternal deaths.

 

     Your Committee notes that, as received by your Committee, the measure appropriates $150,000 to the Department of Health to conduct child death reviews and to implement a maternal death review program.  To ensure sufficient funding in subsequent years, your Committee requests that the department identify the annual recurring costs of the child and maternal death review programs.

 

     Your Committee has amended this measure by:

 

(1)  Changing the appropriation to an unspecified amount; and

 

(2)  Changing the effective date to July 1, 2050, to facilitate further discussion on the measure.

 

     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. 2317, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2317, S.D. 2.

 

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

 

 

 

________________________________

JILL N. TOKUDA, Chair