Members of the Senate Committee on Health passed a bill Friday that will, if passed by the Senate Committee on Rules and Judiciary, “make the Virgin Islands part of a uniform system that quickly and efficiently facilitates the deployment and use of licensed practitioners to provide health and veterinary services in response to declared emergencies.”
In response to problems experienced by states following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Uniform Health Practitioners Act was adopted in 2006, followed by an amendment in 2007 by the National Conference of Commissioners of Uniform State Laws. Virgin Islands Code does contain regulation regarding emergency response practitioners, but this bill amends the code in order to improve the current system.
The bill establishes a system for the use of volunteer health practitioners even if communications are disrupted, provides safeguards to assure that the practitioners are appropriately licensed and regulated, authorizes the Virgin Islands to regulate, direct, and restrict the scope of services provided by volunteer practitioners to promote disaster recovery operations, imposes limitations on the volunteers’ exposure to liability, and enables volunteer health practitioners who suffer injury or death while providing services to be eligible for workers compensation benefits.
In testimony submitted to the committee, Christine Jordan, president of St. John Rescue, supported the bill, stating, “This legislation is particularly important for the territory of the Virgin Islands due to our limited resources of backup health care providers within the territory itself and our location in the Caribbean.”
V.I. Territorial Emergency Management Agency Director Mark Walters thanked Sen. Patrick Simeon Sprauve, primary sponsor of this bill, stating, “This bill promotes rapid disaster recovery while protecting volunteers from civil liabilities. By so doing, it promotes volunteerism, one of the principal ingredients to successful recovery.”
“Considering the fact that today is 9/11,” said Tom Bolt, chairman of the U.S. Virgin Islands Uniform Law Commission, “I can think of no more appropriate legislative act you could have passed.”
Sprauve will submit the bill to the Rules Committee with a technical amendment clarifying the responsibilities of the Department of Health and VITEMA.
Voting in favor of the bill were Sens. Craig W. Barshinger, Neville A. James, Shawn-Michael Malone, Usie R. Richards, Sprauve and Alvin L. Williams Jr.
Also under consideration was a bill repealing the Virgin Islands Anatomical Gift Act, reenacting it as the Virgin Islands Revised Uniform Anatomical Gift Act. The new act makes changes to the consent process by accommodating the forms commonly found on the back of drivers licenses in the United States. It also gives individuals more power of choice by allowing a signed refusal that bars others from making a gift of the individual’s organs after death and prevents others from overriding an individual’s decision to make or refuse to make an anatomical gift. The act establishes standards for donor registries and provides for cooperation between medical examiners and organ procurement organizations.
Marien Saade, executive director of LifeLink de Puerto Rico, the organ procurement organization for the Virgin Islands, told committee members, “These changes are significant and when implemented, will surely lead to an increase in donors, which translates to more lives being saved.”
The act also provides for the procurement organization to be able to engage in a search of the Bureau of Motor Vehicles’ records to determine the donor status of anyone referred by a hospital. Lillian Sutherland, territorial program coordinator for the U.S. Virgin Islands Minority Organ/Tissue Transplant Education Program (MOTTEP), informed senators that organ donors indicating their wish to donate are still being recorded as no. She also stated that “some of those who draw it to the clerk’s attention are now being told that it doesn’t matter anyway.” Sutherland said, “It does make a difference and a person is entitled to have his/her choice accurately reflected on the drivers license, especially in this new proposal.” She has submitted a letter to the office of Police Commissioner Novelle E. Francis Jr. in hopes of finally making the donor designated license a reality.
All seven committee members voted in favor of the bill.
Also under consideration Friday:
- A bill sponsored by Richards requiring physicians to file all Medicare prescriptions electronically with pharmacists beginning no later than December 31, 2011. Although Medicare began offering physicians incentives to do this in January 2009, the territory does not currently have the capability to do this. According to Department of Health Commissioner Designee Julia Sheen, her department is working on a grant application to establish a Health Information Exchange. Sheen stated that “the infrastructure required to facilitate electronic prescribing needs to be further developed.” Richards original bill gave a deadline of Dec. 31, 2009 but after hearing testimony from Sheen and other members of her department, he submitted an amendment with the new date of Dec. 31, 2011, which Sheen agreed was a reasonable amount of time to get the infrastructure in place. Senators voted unanimously in favor of the bill.
- A bill curtailing the practice of some medical doctors and medical practitioners from referring patients to a laboratory in which they have a financial interest. Senators voted to hold the bill in the committee for further review.
