SB 14-PROTECT HEALTH CARE PROVIDER CONSCIENCE  1:33:15 PM CHAIR DAVIS announced the first order of business would be SB 14. SENATOR FRED DYSON, sponsor of SB 14, said this bill was prompted by a conversation with a pharmacist who was tired of dispensing large amounts of Oxycontin to people on Medicaid. It is sold on the streets, and people have figured out how to smoke it and shoot it. Senator Dyson then read from the sponsor statement, as follows: A health care professional's view of health, sickness, patient care and purpose of medicine comprise a well- formed professional conscience. This conscience is changed with new information and technology. A broad application of a right of conscience applies to the issues of end of life care, consumer genetic testing, the practice of pain management, psychotropic drug use, sterilizations, race-specific medications, infant circumcision, physician and nurse complicity in capital punishment, physician assisted suicide, abortion, etc. This bill recognizes the societal benefits that divergent organizational identities bring; the relational dimension of professional conscience between health care institutions and providers, between providers and patients, and between providers and communities; and helps ensure the conditions necessary for the conversations of conscience to continue concerning the health care profession. Most states have laws protecting the conscience rights of health care providers. Alaska law currently does not provide for a general health care provider protection of conscience. SB 14 provides a guarantee for the exercise of health care provider conscience in an increasingly pluralistic environment. All health care providers must be treated equally, and must have recourse to the exception made for conscience. 1:37:08 PM CHARLES COBB, Staff to Senator Dyson, summarized the bill, as follows: · Provides within Alaska Statutes, Title 18, a protection and reasonable accommodation for a health care provider's expression of conscience pertaining to provision of a health care service; · Establishes written notice as the method of communicating an expression of conscience, and that the employer will reasonably accommodate and not discriminate against the employee providing notice; and · Provides that the notice does not have to include the reason for the objection, but must be related to the provider's conscience and not to a protected status of the patient; and · Provides that an employer is not required to accommodate the employee if the employer demonstrates the accommodation poses undue hardship or the objecting employee is the only health care provider available in a life-threatening circumstance, and that the health care provider may not refuse to provide treatment or care in a life-threatening circumstance until an alternate health care provider is available; and · Provides civil and criminal immunity to health care providers who express conscience in compliance with this section; and · Provides that this section will be construed in a manner consistent with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; and · Defines terms. 1:39:22 PM SENATOR MEYER said he was concerned about rural areas where there is only one health care provider. SENATOR DYSON responded if it was a life threatening situation they must provide the care. MR. COBB said the bill recognizes relationships. For instance, if one provider provides 99.9 percent of all requested services, we don't want that provider to be shut down. It is important that those things are discussed with patients. Conscience is different in each community. SENATOR DYSON stated that most doctors think the bill is not necessary. One doctor did not want to use a particular medication because patients were dying when he used it. His professional judgment was to use what was best for his patients. 1:43:39 PM SENATOR DYSON noted the bill was endorsed by the state pharmacy board, as well as several doctors. CHAIR DAVIS said she has gathered research information about the bill, which she will distribute to committee members. She announced that SB 14 would be held in committee.