Chap. 436.—An ACT to amend and re-enact an act entitled an act to re-
quire the licensing and adequate inspection and supervision of per-
sons and corporations conducting maternity hospitals and lying-in
asylums, and of persons receiving, boarding and keeping children, not
relatives; prescribing rules for placing out and for reports : penalty.

(H. B. 4683.)

Approved March 21, 1916.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That
in act entitled an act to require the licensing and adequate
nspection and supervision of persons and corporations conduct-
ng maternity hospitals and lying-in asylums, and of persons
eceiving, boarding and keeping children, not relatives; pre-
cribing rules for placing out and for reports; penalty, approved
“ebruary twentieth, nineteen hundred and twelve, be amended
ind re-enacted so as to read as follows:

Section 1. That any person or corporation, not being super-
ntendent of the poor, that erects, conducts, establishes or main-
ains in this State a maternity hospital or lying-in asylum,
vhere females may be received, cared for or treated during
pregnancy, or during or after delivery, or receives, boards or
keeps any children, not relatives, under seventeen years of age,
without legal commitment, shall, on and after the passage of
this bill, obtain, on the recommendation of the State board of
charities and corrections, a license to conduct said business
from the local board of health of the city or county in which
said business is carried on, or in which such children are
boarded or kept.

Sec. 2. No infant delivered in any lying-in asylum in this
State shall be placed out by the mother while an inmate of said
lying-in asylum, or within one month after leaving said asylum,
or by any other person whatever, except upon the approval of
the superintendent, or other person in charge of said asylum,
and of the local health officer.

Sec. 3. Where arrangements for the placing out of an in-
fant whose mother is an inmate of any lying-in asylum in this
State are made by any person other than the superintendent of
said asylum, said superintendent shall be held responsible for
the proper placing of said infant as if the arrangements had
been personally made by said superintendent.

Sec. 4. Every superintendent or other person in charge of
any lying-in asylum or maternity home, or other institution in
this State where females may be received, cared for or treated
during pregnancy, or during or after delivery, shall report in
writing to the local health officer, on forms furnished by said
health officer, every birth, admission, death and discharge oc-
curing in or from said lying-in asylum, maternity home or other
institution, within twenty-four hours, and duplicates of said
report shall be sent to the State board of charities and correc-
tions.

Sec. 5. Every report of such birth, admission, death or
discharge shall give the full name of the infant and parents, so
far as these can be obtained, and said information shall be re-
garded as confidential and permanent record shall be made of
same.

sec. 6. Any person or corporation who shall wilfully vio-
late any of the provisions of this act, shall be guilty of misde-
meanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine
of not less than twenty-five dollars nor more than one hundred
dollars for each offense.

Sec. 7. All acts and parts of acts in conflict with this act
are hereby repealed.