Prompt reports and registration by physicians

Enforce law and sanitary code

Attend conferences

Reports of health officers,

prompt and full reports by physicians of communicable diseases, and prompt and full registration of births and deaths.

6. Enforce within their jurisdiction the provisions of the public health law and the sanitary code.

7. Attend the annual conferences of sanitary officers called by the state department of health, and local conferences within his sanitary district, to which he may be summoned by the sanitary supervisor thereof.*

The written reports of public health officers, inspectors, nurses and other representatives of public health officers on questions of fact under the public health nurses, etc., law or under the sanitary code or any local health regu

inspectors

presumptive evidence

Exempt from personal liability

lation shall be presumptive evidence of the facts so stated, and shall be received as such in all courts and places. The persons making such reports shall be exempt from personal liability for the statements therein made, if they have acted in good faith.

No health officer, inspector, public health nurse, or other representative of a public health officer, and no person or persons other than the city, village or town by which such health officer or representative thereof is employed shall be sued or held to liability for any act done or omitted by any such health officer or representative of a health officer in good faith and with crdinary discretion on behalf or under the direction of such city, village or town or pursuant to its regulations or ordinances, or the sanitary code, or the public health law. Any person whose property may have been unjustly or illegally destroyed or injured pursuant to any order, regulation or ordinance, or action of any board of health or health officer, or representative of a health officer, for which no personal liability may exist as aforesaid, may maintain a proper action against the city, village or town for the recovery

of proper compensation or damages. Every such suit must be brought within six months after the cause of action arose and the recovery shall be limited to the damages suffered. (Added by L. 1913, ch. 559, in effect May 16, 1913.)

may

§ 21-c. Public health nurses. Each health officer or Health other official exercising similar duties, by whatever offi- officer cial designation he may be known, shall have power to employ employ such number of public health nurses as in his health judgment may be necessary within the limits of the nurses appropriation made therefor by the city, town or vil

public

under

of health

lage. They shall work under the direction of the Nurses health officer and may be assigned by him to the reduc- work tion of infant mortality, the examination or visitation direction of school children or children excluded from school, the officer discovery or visitation of cases of tuberculosis, the visitation of the sick who may be unable otherwise to Duties secure adequate care, the instruction of members of households in which there is a sick person, or to such other duties as may seem to him appropriate. (Added by L. 1913, ch. 559, in effect May 16, 1913.)

§ 22. Lake George health district. All the territory Lake of Lake George and its water-shed within the town of George Queensbury, Warren county; the towns of Fort Ann, district Dresden and Putnam, Washington county, and the town of Ticonderoga, Essex county, south of the "Narrows" or original outlet of Lake George; and the entire territory of the towns of Hague, Bolton and Caldwell and the village of Lake George, Warren county; shall hereafter not be deemed to be the whole or a part of any present local health district but shall be a separate health district to be known as the Lake George health district. Within thirty days after the passage of this Memberact the supervisor of each of such towns and the presi- board dent of such village shall meet and elect a board of health of three members for such Lake George health district. Of the board of health first elected one mem

Terms of

members

Rights, powers and

duties of board

Expenses

of district

Registration districts not

changed

ber shall be elected to serve until January first, nineteen hundred and nineteen, one until January first, nineteen hundred and twenty, and one until January first, nineteen hundred and twenty-one. Prior to December thirty-first each year such supervisors and village president shall meet and elect one member of the board of health who shall serve three years from the January first following or until his successor has been elected and has qualified. When the duly elected members of the board of health of such district have qualified such board of health shall have all the rights, powers and duties in such district as are conferred or imposed upon the board of health of any consolidated health district; and the expenses of such district shall be defrayed in the manner set forth in section twenty of the public health law in its relation to consolidated health districts; or under the provision of section twenty-a of the public health law.

This act shall not change the present districts for the registration of vital statistics nor the appointment, authority nor term of office of any of the registrars of vital statistics in any present district nor shall it change the administration of the health laws in the remainder of the towns of Queensbury, Warren county; Fort Ann, Dresden and Putnam, Washington county; and Ticonderoga, Essex county. (Added by L. 1918, ch. 174, in effect April 10, 1918.)

§ 23. Burial and burial permits. Repealed. (See new Vital Statistics Law, article xx* herein.)

When

§ 24. Regulating interments in cemeteries. ever the common council of any city of the third class shall deem that further interments in any cemetery in such city would be detrimental to the public health, it may by resolution direct its clerk to cause a notice to be served upon the person or corporation owning or con

common

trolling such cemetery and published once in a week for three successive weeks in two papers published in such city, stating a time and place not less than thirty days after service and first publication of such notice, at which any person interested may show cause to the common council why further interments in such cemetery should not be prohibited. At the time and place specified in such notice the common council shall hear Hearing all persons desiring to be heard, and if upon such hear-b ing it appears that further interments in such cemetery council will be detrimental to public health, the common council may by resolution prohibit further interments therein. If such resolution is adopted a certified copy thereof shall be filed by the clerk of the common council with the board of health of such city, and thereafter such board shall not issue any permits for interments in such cemetery. The action of the common council in passing such resolution may be reviewed within thirty days thereafter by writ of certiorari as provided by the code of civil procedure.

board

against

communi

§ 25. Infectious and contagious or communicable diseases. Every local board of health and every health Local officer shall guard against the introduction of such to guard infectious and contagious or communicable diseases as introducare designated in the sanitary code,* by the exercise of tion of proper and vigilant medical inspection and control of cable all persons and things infected with or exposed to such diseases diseases, and provide suitable places for the treatment and care of sick persons who cannot otherwise be provided for. They may, subject to the provisions of the sanitary code, prohibit and prevent all intercourse and communication with or use of infected premises, places Board and things, and require, and if necessary, provide the establish means for the thorough purification and cleansing of quarantine the same before general intercourse with the same or

may

Physicians to report to health

officer

House

use thereof shall be allowed.* Every physician shall immediately give notice of every case of infectious and contagious or communicable disease required by the state department of health to be reported to it,† to the health officer of the city, town or village where such disease occurs, and no physician being in attendance on such case, it shall be the duty of the superintendent or

other officer of an institution, householder, hotel or

holder, etc., lodging house keeper, or other person where such case

to report

Report to health officer

of result

of examinations, in case of communicable

disease

occurs, to give such notice.‡ Whenever an examination for diagnosis by a laboratory or by any person other than the physician in charge of the person from whom the specimen is taken, of any specimen discloses the existence of a case of infectious and contagious or communicable disease, the person in charge of such laboratory or the person making such examination shall immediately report the same, together with all the facts in connection therewith, to the health officer of the city, town or village where such laboratory is situated and also to the health officer of the city, town or village from which such specimen came and shall keep a permanent

Record of record of all the facts in connection with such exami

examinations

Fee for reporting communi

cable disease to health officer

Report by health

nation, including the identity of the person from whom the specimen is taken and the name of the physician, if any, sending such specimen. The physician or other person giving such notice shall be entitled to the sum of twenty-five cents therefor, which shall be a charge upon and paid by the municipality where such case occurs. Every local health officer shall report to the state department of health, promptly, all cases of such infectious and contagious or communicable diseases, as may

be required by the state department of health, and for to depart- such reporting the health officer of a village or town