Sen. Stephanie Hansen

This bill updates the members of the Childhood Lead Poisoning Advisory Committee to include additional stakeholders, and directs the Committee to report to the General Assembly on the effectiveness of the Act, ways to improve the Act, and other measures that should be taken by the State of Delaware to prevent lead poisoning in children.

The bills eliminates the requirement that an institution provide notary services to parents of new born children for the purpose of executing an acknowledgment of paternity. This bill also eliminates the requirement that an acknowledgment of paternity be notarized and that it only be witnessed by someone who is not a parent or relative of either parent.

Since 1975, the Delaware Population Consortium has prepared a unified set of statewide population projections each year. These projections are used for a variety of purposes including capital planning, policy analysis, comprehensive planning, and transportation planning. All 3 counties are required by State law to utilize these projections to prepare their required comprehensive plans. However, the Delaware Population Consortium does not exist in State law. This Act formally creates the Delaware Population Consortium, identifies its membership and work products, and requires that all counties, municipalities, school districts, and State agencies use the Consortium’s projections for planning and policy purposes.

This House Concurrent Resolution outlines the need for expansion of the exchange network between school and county libraries and requests that the Secretary of State develop and implement such expansion.

This legislation changes the requirement for the Department of Transportation to submit a Capital Transportation Program from annually to biennially.

This Act permits a terminally ill individual who is an adult resident of Delaware to request and self-administer medication to end the individual's life in a humane and dignified manner if both the individual's attending physician and a consulting physician agree on the individual's diagnosis and prognosis and believe the individual has decision-making capacity, is making an informed decision, and is acting voluntarily. This Act uses terms and definitions that are consistent with other Delaware laws in Title 16, specifically Chapter 25 (regarding advance health-care directives) and Chapter 25A (regarding Delaware Medical Orders for Scope of Treatment). This Act also provides the following procedural safeguards: 1. No one may request medication to end life on behalf of another individual. 2. An individual cannot qualify for medication to end life under this chapter solely because of the individual's age or disability. 3. Both the individual's attending physician and a consulting physician must confirm that the individual has a terminal illness and a prognosis of 6 months or less to live, has decision-making capacity, is making an informed decision, and is acting voluntarily. 4. The individual's attending physician must also provide specific disclosures to the individual to ensure that the individual is making an informed decision, including the presentation of all end of life options which include comfort care, hospice care, and pain control. 5. The individual must be evaluated by a psychiatrist or a psychologist if either the attending or consulting physicians are concerned that the individual lacks decision-making capacity. 6. The individual must complete a witnessed form requesting medication to end life and there are limitations on who can witness the signing of the form. 7. The attending physician must offer the individual the opportunity to rescind the request for medication to end life before writing a prescription for the medication. 8. Two waiting periods must pass before the attending physician may prescribe the medication to end life. 9. An insurer or health-care provider may not deny or alter healthcare benefits otherwise available to an individual based upon the availability of medication to end life or otherwise coerce or require a request for medication to end life as a condition of receiving care. 10. A health-care institution may prohibit a physician from prescribing medication to end life on the health-care institution's premises. 11. The cause of death for an individual who self-administers medication under this Act must be listed as the underlying terminal condition and a request or prescription for or the dispensing of medication under this Act does not constitute a suicide, assisted-suicide, homicide, or euthanasia. 12. People acting in good faith and in accordance with generally accepted health-care standards under this Act have immunity, but those acting with negligence, recklessness, or intentional misconduct do not have criminal or civil immunity. 13. The Department of Health and Social Services must develop rules and regulations to collect information regarding compliance with this Act, complete an annual statistical report of information collected under this Act, and may review samples of records maintained under this Act. This Act is known as "The Ron Silverio/Heather Block End of Life Options Law" in memory of Ron Silverio and Heather Block, who were passionate advocates that passed away without this option becoming available to them.

This House Concurrent Resolution establishes an Interagency Pharmaceuticals Purchasing Study Group ("Study Group") to coordinate the existing efforts to leverage bulk purchasing to negotiate lower prices and make recommendations to maximize the opportunities to coordinate State-funded pharmaceutical purchases.

This concurrent resolution establishes the Non-Acute Patient Medical Guardianship Task Force to study and make findings and recommendations regarding the needs and options of non-acute hospital patients in need of medical guardianship services. A recent study concluding in 2017 found that hospital patients who did not have acute medical needs were often abandoned in hospitals. These patients often lack financial means to pay for a guardian to make medical decisions. The Office of Public Guardian does not have sufficient resources to intervene to make timely medical decisions for such non-acute patients. In addition to harming these non-acute patients with prolonged hospital stays, patients with acute medical needs are not timely and adequately served because hospital beds are occupied by such non-acute patients. This concurrent resolution establishes a task force to study and make recommendations on these issues.

This Resolution recognizes April 2019 as "Parkinson's Disease Awareness Month" in the State of Delaware.

This Act requires that accumulated snow and ice be removed from services of a vehicle before it is operated and imposes a civil penalty for a violation. This Act also creates a civil penalty for each instance where snow or ice dislodges from a moving vehicle and causes property damage or personal injury but this penalty is not an exclusive remedy for property damage or personal injury.