Safety of Citizens Should Come First

By State Representative Cam Ward

Sometimes the laws on our books can hinder or even harm efforts to help our citizens. This was very evident to me during a recent legislative initiative I was involved in to remove some of the red tape facing states when a catastrophic disaster occurs. It is our responsibility as elected officials to make sure the law works to assist people in their time of need and not prevent them from receiving the services they so desperately desire.

As a member of the National Conference on Uniform State Laws I was among 250 attorneys, judges, law professors, legislators and other state officials throughout the country who participated in the 2006 Annual Meeting of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL). Now in its 115^th year, NCCUSL is comprised of more than 300 commissioners appointed by every state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to draft and promote enactment of uniform laws that are designed to solve problems common to all the states.

Commissioners come together once a year to study and consider drafts of specific statutes in areas of the law where uniformity between the states is desirable.  Several acts were debated and discussed recently by the members of the commission but one act is directly applicable to the people of Alabama.

The new Uniform Emergency Volunteer Healthcare Act, which was drafted in response to the recent devastation in the Gulf States from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, specifically confronts the problem of allowing out-of-state medical professionals to practice in the afflicted areas.  During the aftermath of these two horrible hurricanes last year there were a flood of volunteer doctors who offered to come to communities on the gulf coast to provide free medical care to all who needed it.  Unfortunately when many of these health care professionals arrived they were told they would not be allowed to provide medical service because they would violate state law on practicing without a license. So instead of making the safety of our citizens come first the law placed a barrier in the way of saving lives.  This new act, which I was involved in debating, will allow state governments to recognize and honor other states’ licensees on emergency service providers so that qualified covered individuals may provide medical services without meeting the disaster state’s licensing requirements. In short, someone who is qualified to provide medical services somewhere else in the country can come to our state and help those in their time of need without having to wait for months of bureaucratic red tape to be cleared up.

Alabama needs to adopt this act as soon as possible because when disaster strikes our state again we need laws in place that put the safety and well being of our citizens first.