It is shown that for a complete surface with constant mean
curvature $H>1$ in $\mathbb{H}\kern0.5pt ^3$ with boundary
and finite index the distance function to the boundary is
bounded. We apply this result to establish a sharp height
estimate for certain geodesic graphs with noncompact
boundary. We also show that a geodesically complete, embedded
surface in $\mathbb{H}\kern0.5pt ^3$ with constant mean
curvature $H>1$ and bounded Gaussian curvature is proper
and has an $\epsilon -$tubular neighborhood on its mean convex
side that is embedded. Finally, we use this last result to
obtain a monotonicity formula for such a surface.