Senate Standing Committee on Education

Good afternoon everyone, and welcome. This joint hearing of the Senate Committee on Education and Committee on Health and Human Services will come to order. Today's Wednesday, February 11th, and we're meeting in this room, Conference Room 225. And this hearing is being streamed live on YouTube.

If this hearing is abruptly ends due to technical difficulties, the Committee will reconvene on Friday, February 13th at 1pm in Conference Room 229, which a notice will be posted on the legislature's website. And due to the number of measures before the Committee and the volume of testimonies, testimony will be limited to one minute for testifier.

And in light of the the rain day we had on Monday, a lot of our hearings are being backed up because everything had to be rescheduled. So I hope you will all patient. If technical difficulties do arise during zoom testimony, a Committee may need to proceed to the next testifier. But we do have your written testimony.

The purpose of today's hearing is to receive testimony on measures relating to student health and safety in schools, academic and workforce programs, and also with the University of Hawaii. So we will start with our first item on the agenda. Welcome our chair from the Big Island.

Thank you for HHS and with my Vice Chair, Senator McKelvey

and my Vice Chair, Senator Michelle Kidani. Okay. Senate Bill 2969, starting with Dayna Moore testifying for Hawaii Community Health.

I'm sorry, I'm saying this is relating to the Maui Wildfire Exposure Study and Maui Health Registry appropriates funds for the University of Hawaii to expand and sustain services provided by the Maui Wildfire Exposure Study and Maui Health Registry.

With that Dayna Moore. Not here. We're on Zoom.

Can you hear me? Mahalo, Chairs Kim and San Buenavetura and Members of the community. My name is Dayna Moore. I'm a Kanaka Maoli nurse raised on Maui.

And as the founder and leader of Hawaii Community Health, an organization dedicated to strengthening community health by bridging healthcare providers, researchers, educators, families and leaders across Hawaii.

I want to share that we are in strong support of SB2969. Our lived experience is that Maui fires of August 8, 2023 were the deadliest in a century.

What followed has been described by experts as the is the disaster after the disaster. The trauma did not end that day and the health impacts continue to emerge.

Burnout among health care providers, mental health professionals, educators and community helpers are real. I wanted to say that Maui west from experience is not passive research.

Every point of contact we've created matters and with partners, we accomplish screenings and sample collection. But we also share in the real tears and and smiles with our community.

Sorry, your time is up. So thank you very much. And we're going to ask testifiers if you don't mind standing on your testimony Committee. We really appreciate it. We have Koby Chalk from testifying from the Alzheimer's Association of Hawaii.

Aloha Chair. We stand on our written testimony just highlighting our amendment.

Thank you very much. We have Jack Lewin testifying for the State Department of Health Chairs.

We stand on our testimony. Thank you.

Thank you. Jonathan Ching from Kaiser Permanente. Not here. Okay. We have Sybil Moran by Zoom. Sybil, are you?

Aloha? Yes, I'm here. Aloha. Mai Kako zero. Sybil Ka'o Inoa.

I'm here as a Maui west participant, a first responder who worked in the burn zone in Lahaina, a community facilitator and a resident of Lahaina asking for your help and supporting my community by allowing Maui west to continue giving their free health checkups because they are saving lives.

I work with fire survivors every day, many who have found out they had diabetes, lung obstructions, anemia, hypertension, myself included. These invaluable checkups include heavy metal testing with lung function tests, blood work, and mental health screenings.

Where else can you go and get all of that testing for free and on the same day meet with the physician and a mental health provider like Dr. Pitt or Dr. Blaisdale.

Additionally, nursing students, students from Maui as well as Oahu, get firsthand experience working with our medically underserved community.

I will conclude by saying this is a win win for everyone. And I'd like to say Mahalo Nui Loa to the Committee and the Chairs for your time and consideration.

Thank you very much. Pedro Harold. Thank you very much. Amy Jackson on Zoom.

Aloha. My name is Amy Jackson. I'm coming to you from the Island of Maui. The Maui Wildflower study literally saved my life. I barely escaped from Front street with my life the day of the fires.

A year later, I learned that my life was on the line again when I participated in the study for a hundred dollars cash to give my daughter her birthday present. I had difficulty with the breathing studies and my hemoglobin didn't even register on the equipment that day.

I was sent to the emergency room by the Maui Wildfire study staff and was admitted for multiple blood transfusions and spent months in and out of the hospital at treatment.

I was also processed to get help with my mental health because of the study and the questionnaire that they asked. I didn't think that I needed medical treatment.

Treatment. And as a single mom, I was just out there taking care of myself and thinking that 50 was kicking my butt. But going to participate in the wildfire study, I learned that my life was on the line, and it literally saved my life. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Peggy Latari. Peggy, hi.

Hi. Good afternoon. I'm Dr. Peggy Latari. I'm a retired family physician and also a clinical adjunct. And for the last 18 months.

If you're going to testify, you need to come. Come up here. Yes.

Okay. I'm sorry. First time here. So. Yeah. So 30. Almost 40 years of healthcare experience as a family physician.

I've been volunteering for the last 18 months or so on Maui with the wildflower study. And the thing that I have noticed several things, but that the wildfires were devastating, not just mental health and physical health, but spiritual health as well.

Just last week, we sent two individuals to the emergency room with extremely high medical emergency, high blood pressures that would never have been diagnosed if they hadn't come in that day. We're also detecting untreated diabetes, lung disease. Extreme.

I saw a case of Catatonia in a teenager that I have never seen before, not even in my training in the early days after the wildfire. And luckily, we had on site mental health providers there. So the impacts of the wildfires did not end in 2023. They are ongoing.

And this study is really helping to provide care, not only to research the important things to follow as these folks try to deal with the devastation. Mahalo.

Thank you very much. Jordan. On zoom. Not pleasant. On zoom. Chair. Okay, thank you. We go to Ruben. Jawez. Thank you. Stephanie Villalobos. Not here. Christopher Knightsbridge.

Hello, everybody. I'll try to make it quick because we got a minute, but My name is Dr. Christopher Knightsbridge. I have two roles. I work as clinician and lahaina. I fly out every single week to work 100% with fire survivors.

I'm also the mental health team lead with our study. A couple questions you may have. So why do we need more money? Basically, we need more money to expand. Right now we have about 2,000 participants. 200 of them are children.

I want 2,000 children. I want at least 800. If you give us this money, we can definitely reach that. That's a very achievable goal. Another thing I really want to emphasize is we hear the word study. We are not really a study.

We do collect data and research, but we do arguably as much intervention and treatment as we do research and data. So we don't just. They come in and we find out something's wrong with something's wrong.

We don't just say, okay, see ya. We make sure they get all the help humanly possible. You can ask some questions later if you want. Thank you.

Thank you, Christopher. Martina Kamaka. Not here. That's all that I have that asked to that we're going to be testifying. Is there anyone else here in the room that would like to speak quickly? 30 seconds. Excuse me, Chair.

We have someone on Zoom that would like to participate.

Okay, well, let me take this one first and then we'll get to the Zoom. Go ahead. Please identify yourself.

Aloha. Mahalo. My name is Samia Dutra. I'm a nurse and a faculty from the University of Hawaii. I'm here to share that this initiative also supports the workforce development.

We also have training nursing students which supports them not only in developing their skills, but also in connecting with the community as well as with the community navigators that exist in the community. Thank you so much for your time.

And I would like just to reinforce that this initiative is a win win all the way around. We have a workforce training. We have a service to the community as well as be able to develop the science and as well as better efforts to support everyone around. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. On Zoom. Identify yourself, please.

Aloha. This is Jordan with Lahaina Strong. We'll be standing on written testimony today. Lahaina Strong supports you guys passing SB2969. Mahalo.