Title 32.1, Title 32.1. Health

A. The Chief Medical Examiner may appoint for each county and city one or more medical examiners, who shall be licensed as a doctor of medicine or osteopathic medicine, a physician assistant, or an advanced practice registered nurse in the Commonwealth and appointed as agents of …

The Chief Medical Examiner may appoint per diem medicolegal death investigators, who shall have knowledge of standards and procedures for medicolegal death investigations, to assist the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner with medicolegal death investigations. Per diem medicoleg…

A. Upon the death of any person from trauma, injury, violence, poisoning, accident, suicide, or homicide, or suddenly when in apparent good health, or when unattended by a physician, or in jail, prison, or other correctional institution, or in police custody, or who was at the ti…

A. There is hereby created the State Child Fatality Review Team, referred to in this section as "the Team," which shall develop and implement procedures to ensure that child deaths occurring in Virginia are analyzed in a systematic way. The Team shall review (i) violent and unnat…

A. Upon the initiative of any local or regional law-enforcement agency, fire department, department of social services, emergency medical services agency, attorney for the Commonwealth's office, or community services board, local or regional child fatality teams may be establishe…

A. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner shall develop a model protocol for the development and implementation of local family violence fatality review teams (teams) and such model protocol shall include relevant procedures for conducting reviews of fatal family violence incid…

A. Confidential records and information obtained from private and public entities and provided to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner during the course of a death investigation shall remain confidential and shall not be subject to the provisions of the Virginia Freedom of In…

A. There is hereby created the Adult Fatality Review Team, referred to in this section as "the Team," which shall develop and implement procedures to ensure that adult deaths occurring in the Commonwealth are analyzed in a systematic way. The Team shall review the death of any pe…

A. Upon the initiative of any local or regional law-enforcement agency, department of social services, emergency medical services agency, attorney for the Commonwealth's office, community services board, or official with the Adult Protective Services Unit established pursuant to …

A. Any county or city, or combination of counties, cities, or counties and cities, may establish a local or regional overdose fatality review team for the purpose of (i) conducting contemporaneous reviews of local overdose deaths, (ii) promoting cooperation and coordination among…

A. As used in this section, "maternal death" means the death of a woman who was pregnant at the time of death or within one year prior to the time of death, regardless of the outcome of the pregnancy, including any death determined to be a natural death, unnatural death, or viole…

A. Any county or city, or combination of counties, cities, or counties and cities, may establish a local or regional suicide fatality review team for the purpose of (i) conducting contemporaneous reviews of local deaths from suicide, including suicide deaths of military service m…

A. If, in the opinion of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, it is advisable and in the public interest that an autopsy be made as part of the investigation of the death, or if an autopsy is requested by the attorney for the Commonwealth or by a judge of the circuit court o…

An autopsy shall be performed in the case of any infant death which is suspected to be attributable to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). For the purposes of this section, "Sudden Infant Death Syndrome" (SIDS), a diagnosis of exclusion, means the sudden and unexpected death of …

A. In any case of death described in subsection A of § 32.1-283, where the body is buried without investigation by the Chief Medical Examiner, an Assistant Chief Medical Examiner, or a medical examiner appointed pursuant to § 32.1-282 into the cause and manner of death or where s…

As used in this Act, unless the context requires otherwise: "Adult" means an individual who is at least 18 years of age. "Agent" means an individual: 1. Authorized to make health-care decisions on the principal's behalf by a power of attorney for health care; or 2. Expressly auth…

A. In order to save lives by reducing the shortage of organs and tissues for transplantation and to implement cost savings for patients and various state agencies by eliminating needless bureaucracy, there is hereby established the Virginia Donor Registry (hereinafter referred to…

The provisions of § 54.1-2972 shall be applicable for the purposes of this article.

No action for implied warranty shall lie for the procurement, processing, distribution or use of whole blood, plasma, blood products, blood derivatives and other human tissue such as corneas, bones, or organs for the purpose of injecting, transfusing or transplanting any of them …

A. The Virginia Transplant Council (hereinafter referred to as the Council) is hereby established to fulfill the following duties: 1. To create, compile, maintain, and modify as necessary the Virginia Donor Registry established in § 32.1-292.2 in accordance with the regulations o…

A. As used in this section: "Auxiliary aids or services" means an aid or service that is used to provide information to an individual with a cognitive, developmental, intellectual, neurological, or physical disability in a format or manner that allows the individual to better und…

Any person having charge or control of any dead human body that has been lawfully donated for scientific study shall notify the Commissioner whenever and as soon as any such body comes to his possession, charge, or control and shall, without fee or reward, permit the Commissioner…

A. The bodies received pursuant to § 32.1-298 shall be distributed by the Commissioner to institutions and individuals as they may be needed for the purposes of scientific education and training in health and related subjects as follows: 1. First, to the medical schools in Virgin…

The Commissioner shall keep a record of all bodies received and distributed, together with data pertaining to the disposition thereof.

After the bodies distributed pursuant to § 32.1-299 have been used for the purpose of instruction, they shall be decently interred or cremated by the institution or individual receiving them. However, if the decedent has stipulated in writing before his death that the cremated re…

The Commissioner may, in his discretion, on the application of any person, empower such person to import into this Commonwealth and traffic in such anatomical material and pathological specimens as the Commissioner may designate.

Except as provided in §§ 32.1-299 and 32.1-302, if any person sell or buy any dead human body, or in any way traffic in the same, or transmit or convey, or procure in order to be transmitted or conveyed, any such body for the purpose of trafficking in the same to any place outsid…

If any person fail or refuse to perform any duty imposed upon him by this article, he shall, unless otherwise provided, be guilty of a Class 3 misdemeanor.

A. As used in this chapter, unless the context requires a different meaning: "Disposition" means the burial, interment, entombment, cremation, or other authorized disposition of a dead body permitted by law. "Next of kin" has the same meaning assigned to it in § 54.1-2800. B. In …

A. In any case in which (i) the primary law-enforcement agency of the county or city in which the person or institution having initial custody of the dead body of the decedent is located or the county or city in which the decedent resided, as may be appropriate pursuant to § 32.1…

No dead human body whose death occurred in Virginia shall be cremated or buried at sea, irrespective of the cause and manner of death, unless the Chief Medical Examiner, an Assistant Chief Medical Examiner, or a medical examiner appointed pursuant to § 32.1-282 has determined tha…

The Commissioner, in consultation with the Governor, shall have the authority to determine if human remains are hazardous to the public health. If the Commissioner determines that such remains are hazardous, the Commonwealth, with direction from the Commissioner, shall be charged…

If a dead human body is to be stored for more than 48 hours prior to disposition, any institution having custody of such body shall ensure that the dead human body is maintained in refrigeration at no more than approximately 40 degrees Fahrenheit or shall enter into an agreement …