Chapter 111

Section 1. The following words as used in this chapter, unless a different meaning is required by the context or is specifically prescribed, shall have the following meanings: ''Board of health'' shall include the board or officer having like powers and duties in towns where ther…

Section 100. The magistrate may, by the same warrant, require the officers, under the direction of the board, to impress and take up convenient houses or stores for the safe keeping of such articles; and the board may remove them thereto or otherwise detain them until, in its opi…

Section 101. The officers, in executing the warrant, may command aid and may break open any house, shop or other place mentioned in the warrant. Whoever, being commanded by said officers to assist in the execution of the warrant, neglects or refuses so to do shall forfeit not mor…

Section 102. The expense of securing, transporting and purifying such articles as fixed by the board shall be paid by the owners or by the town, as the board may determine. For any article of furniture or wearing apparel ordered destroyed by the board the town may recompense the …

Section 103. If a sheriff or other officer impresses or takes up any houses, stores, lodging or other necessaries, or impresses men, the town where such persons or property are so impressed shall pay a just compensation to the persons entitled thereto. Compensation for taking or …

Section 104. If a disease dangerous to the public health exists in a town, the selectmen and board of health shall use all possible care to prevent the spread of the infection and may give public notice of infected places by such means as in their judgment may be most effectual f…

Section 105. If a physician or other person who is in any of the hospitals or places of reception mentioned in section ninety-five, or who attends, approaches or is concerned with them, violates a regulation of the board of health relative thereto, he shall forfeit not less than …

Section 106. The board of health of a town near to or bordering upon an adjoining state may in writing appoint suitable persons, who shall attend at places by which travelers may pass from infected places without the commonwealth, and who may examine such travelers as the board s…

Section 107. No person shall convey or cause to be conveyed through or from any town in the commonwealth the body of any person who has died from any disease dangerous to the public health, except in accordance with such rules and regulations as may be made from time to time by t…

Section 108. If a prisoner in a jail or house of correction has a disease which, in the opinion of the physician of the board of health or of such other physician as it may consult, is dangerous to the safety and health of other prisoners or of the inhabitants of the town, the bo…

Section 109. A householder who knows or has cause to believe that a person in his family or house is infected with a disease dangerous to the public health shall forthwith give notice thereof to the board of health of the town where such householder dwells, unless a physician is …

Section 109A. The physician, or hospital medical officer registered under section nine of chapter one hundred and twelve, if any, personally attending the birth of a child shall treat his eyes within two hours after birth with a prophylactic remedy furnished or approved by the de…

Section 110. If either eye of an infant becomes inflamed, swollen and red, or shows an unnatural discharge within two weeks after birth, the nurse, relative or other attendant having charge of such infant shall report in writing, within six hours thereafter, to the board of healt…

Section 110A. The physician attending a newborn child shall cause said child to be subjected to tests for phenylketonuria, cretinism, Duchenne muscular dystrophy and such other specifically treatable genetic or biochemical disorders or treatable infectious diseases which may be d…

Section 110B. A physician, intern, physician assistant, a public health nurse, or another person who professionally examines or treats a child with reyes syndrome shall report such examination or treatment to the department of public health in accordance with the rules and regula…

Section 110C. For the purposes of this section, the following words shall, unless the context clearly requires otherwise, have the following meanings:— ''Birthing facility'', an inpatient or ambulatory health care facility licensed by the department of public health that provides…

Section 110D. (a) The department shall collect and provide data to the department of children and families on all births of infants affected by prenatal substance exposure in a form and manner consistent with any requirements of the federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Ac…

Section 110E. (a) The department, in consultation with the department of children and families and the office of the child advocate, shall promulgate regulations on the requirements of health care providers involved in the delivery or care of infants identified as being affected …

Section 111. If a physician knows or has cause to believe that a person whom he visits is infected with a disease dangerous to the public health, or if either eye of an infant whom or whose mother a physician, or a hospital medical officer registered under section nine of chapter…

Section 111A. If a physician or hospital medical officer registered under section nine of chapter one hundred and twelve knows or has cause to believe that a person whom he is attending is afflicted with cerebral palsy, he shall give written notice thereof to the board of health …

Section 111B. The department shall, subject to appropriation, establish a registry to record certain cases of malignant disease and benign brain-related tumors that occur in residents of the commonwealth, and such information concerning these cases as it shall deem necessary and …

Section 111C. Any person, including without limitation, a police officer, fire fighter, emergency medical technician, corrections officer, ambulance operator or attendant who, while acting in his professional capacity, attends, assists, or transports a person or deceased person t…

Section 112. If the board of health of a town has had notice of a case of any disease declared by the department dangerous to the public health therein, it shall within twenty-four hours thereafter give notice thereof to the department, stating the name and the location of the pa…

Section 113. Every board of health shall keep a record of all reports received pursuant to sections one hundred and nine to one hundred and eleven, inclusive, containing the name and location of all persons who are infected, their disease, the name of the person reporting the cas…

Section 114. A claim of a town against the commonwealth for reasonable expenses incurred by the board of health in making the provision required by law for persons infected with a disease dangerous to the public health shall not be defeated by reason of the failure on the part of…

Section 115. Expenses incurred by a town in the removal of nuisances or for the preservation of the public health, for which any person is liable, may be recovered in contract.

Section 116. Reasonable expenses incurred by boards of health or by the commonwealth in making the provision required by law for persons infected with smallpox or other disease dangerous to the public health, other than tuberculosis, shall be paid by such persons, or, if such per…

Section 116A. The department, subject to rules and regulations approved by the executive office of health and human services or a governmental unit designated by the executive office, may provide for the care and treatment of persons suffering from chronic rheumatism for a period…

Section 117. For the purpose of providing prevention of HIV or treatment for persons suffering from venereal diseases, as defined under section six, and who are unable to pay for private medical care, the department shall, or with the co-operation of local boards of health, hospi…

Section 118. No discrimination shall be made against the treatment of venereal diseases, as defined under section six, in any general hospital supported by taxation in any city or town where special hospitals, other than hospitals connected with penal institutions, are not provid…

Section 119. Hospital, dispensary, laboratory and morbidity reports and records pertaining to venereal diseases, as defined under section six, shall not be public records, and the contents thereof shall not be divulged by any person having charge of or access to the same, except …

Section 121. An inmate of a public charitable institution or a prisoner in a penal institution who is afflicted with a venereal disease, as defined under section six or pulmonary tuberculosis shall be forthwith placed under medical treatment, and if, in the opinion of the attendi…

Section 121A. A physician attending a pregnant woman in this commonwealth during gestation shall take or cause to be taken a sample of blood of such woman at the time of first examination, and shall submit such sample for a standard serological test for syphilis to a laboratory o…

Section 121B. Notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, the department, in consultation with the board of registration in medicine, shall promulgate regulations authorizing a physician, physician assistant, nurse practitioner or certified nurse midwife who is au…

Section 122. The board of health shall examine into all nuisances, sources of filth and causes of sickness within its town, or on board of vessels within the harbor of such town, which may, in its opinion, be injurious to the public health, shall destroy, remove or prevent the sa…

Section 122A. Upon determination by the board of health that the available supply of water for drinking, culinary and other domestic purposes in any place of habitation, or in any place where food or drink is prepared, handled or served to the public, is so unsafe or inadequate a…

Section 123. Said board shall order the owner or occupant of any private premises, at his own expense, to remove any nuisance, source of filth or cause of sickness found thereon within twenty-four hours, or within such other time as it considers reasonable, after notice; and an o…

Section 124. Such order shall be in writing, and may be served personally on the owner, occupant or his authorized agent by any person authorized to serve civil process; or a copy of the order may be left at the last and usual place of abode of the owner, occupant or agent, if he…

Section 125. If the owner or occupant fails to comply with such order, the board may cause the nuisance, source of filth or cause of sickness to be removed, and all expenses incurred thereby shall constitute a debt due the city or town upon the completion of the removal and the r…

Section 125A. If, in the opinion of the board of health, a farm or the operation thereof constitutes a nuisance, any action taken by said board to abate or cause to be abated said nuisance under sections one hundred and twenty-two, one hundred and twenty-three and one hundred and…

Section 126. If the city council of a city, or a town having a population of more than one thousand, accepts this section, or has accepted corresponding provisions of earlier laws, no privy vault shall be constructed upon premises connected with a common or private sewer or abutt…

Section 127. The board of health of a city or town may make and enforce regulations for the public health and safety relative to house drainage and connection with common sewers, if such a sewer abuts the estate to be drained. Master plumbers and journeymen licensed under chapter…

Section 127A. Said department shall adopt, and may from time to time amend, public health regulations to be known as the state sanitary code, which may provide penalties for violations thereof not exceeding five hundred dollars for any one offence or not more than twenty-five tho…

Section 127B. Upon a determination by the board of health, or, in the cities of Boston, Worcester and Cambridge, by the commissioner of housing inspection, after examination as provided in said code, that a building, tenement, room, cellar, mobile dwelling place or any other stru…

Section 127C. If the condition of any building or any part thereof used for residential purposes is in violation of the standards of fitness for human habitation established under the state sanitary code, as provided by section one hundred and twenty-seven A, or in violation of a…

Section 127D. The entry fee for a petition under section one hundred and twenty-seven C shall be two dollars. Upon the filing of such a petition, an order of notice shall issue requiring the owner of record to appear at a time not later than fourteen days after the issuance of sa…

Section 127E. A copy of the report of the investigation by the department of public health or the board of health, or, in the cities of Boston, Worcester and Cambridge, the commissioner of housing inspection, certified as a true copy by the custodian of the records of such agency…

Section 127F. If the court finds after hearing that the facts are as alleged in said petition, it may by written order authorize the petitioner or any other affected tenant to pay to the clerk of the court the fair value of the use and occupation of the premises, or such installm…

Section 127G. At any time after thirty days from the date of a district court's order authorizing the making of rental payments into court under section one hundred and twenty-seven F, upon application of any party and upon payment of a removal fee of five dollars, the clerk of t…

Section 127I. Upon the filing of a petition to enforce the provisions of the sanitary code, or any civil action concerning violations of the sanitary code by any affected occupants or a public agency, whether begun in the district, housing or superior court, and whether brought u…