Chap. 322.—An ACT to provide for the regulation and inspection of maternity
hospitals, to require permits to be obtained for the operation of such hospitals,
to vest certain powers in the State Board of Health, to provide for appeals in
certain cases, to prescribe penalties for violations, and to repeal an act entitled
“An Act to provide for the licensing, regulation, and inspection of Maternity
hospitals, and to repeal sections 1925 to 1930, inclusive, of the Code of Virginia.”’,
approved March 27, 1922. [H B 390]

Approved March 29, 1940

1. Beit enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia, as follows:

Section 1. Definitions.—As used in this act

(a) ‘‘Board’’ means the State Board of Health;

(b) ‘‘Person’”’ means an individual, partnership, association or
corporation;

(c) ‘Maternity hospital’ means any place or establishment
operated or maintained by any person for the care or treatment of
women during pregnancy, or for delivery or for care or treatment
within ten days after delivery, whether the place or establishment so
maintained be a general hospital, a hospital devoted exclusively to
maternity cases, a maternity home or lying-in asylum, or a private

ome.

Section 2. Permits required.—(a) No person shall maintain or
operate a maternity hospital in this State on or after January first,
nineteen hundred and forty-one, unless he shall first obtain from the
Board a permit therefor, as hereinafter provided.

(b) No permit issued pursuant to this act shall authorize any
person to engage in the business or practice of child-placing, and no
person shall engage in such business or practice unless specifically
licensed as a child-placing agency by the State Department of Public
Welfare, as provided by law.

Section 3. Issuance of permits.—The Board is hereby authorized
to issue permits to maintain and operate maternity hospitals. Such
permits shall be in such form as shall be furnished by the Board and
shall have stated thereon the maximum number of maternity patients
that may be cared for at any one time in the maternity hospital for
the maintenance and operation of which the permit is issued, and
shall include a designation of the buildings, floors, or rooms in which
maternity patients and infants may be kept and delivery made; and
for this purpose the Board is hereby authorized to prescribe such
maximum number of patients and to designate such buildings, floors
and rooms. The permit shall be posted in a conspicuous place on
the maternity hospital premises and all employees of such institution
shall be fully informed and instructed with reference thereby by the
licensee, to insure strict compliance with the provisions of this act.
Any permit issued shall remain in effect until revoked or surrendered.
No permit shall be transferable. A provisional permit may be issued
to any maternity hospital for a period not to exceed six months if, in
the opinion of the Board or its authorized agents, the applicant is
worthy and likely to make provision for compliance with all of the
provisions of this act within such period.

Section 4. Qualifications for permit; certain facilities and services
required.—(a) The Board shall grant a permit to maintain and operate
a maternity hospital to any person who makes application therefor
on forms furnished, on request, by the Board, provided that upon
inspection of the maternity hospital by the Board or its duly au-
thorized agents it is found that reasonably satisfactory provision has
been made by the applicant for compliance with all of the require-
ments of subsection (b) of this section.

(b) Every person who shall maintain or operate a maternity
hospital in this State shall make provision for the following facilities,
services and requirements:

(1) Each patient in a maternity hospital shall be under the care
of or attended by a licensed physician.

(2) A registered graduate nurse shall be available for attendance
upon maternity patients and newborn infants at all times, and shall
be in charge of or responsible for all nursing care. Sufficient regis-
tered graduate nurses shall be employed to provide adequate nursing
supervision and care for all maternity patients and infants.

(3) All orders from physicians regarding mothers and infants
shall be written in ink on charts or in order books,

(4) All employees of a maternity hospital who are in contact
with patients at any time and all food handlers shall be subject to
examination at any reasonable hour by State or local boards of health,
or their agents, to determine freedom from communicable disease.

(5) The construction, space and arrangement of the building or
section of the building used as a maternity hospital shall be such as
to provide reasonable isolation of maternity patients from any other
type of patient, insure facilities for efficient care of maternity patients,
provide protection against accidents, and conform to State and local
fire laws.

(6) Such provision shall be made for instruments, equipment,
linens and other facilities, including facilities for transfusion of blood,
as may be necessary for the proper care of maternity patients and
infants.

(7) A room shall be provided as a nursery or each infant must
have adequate individual care.

(8) Standard incubators, or improvised incubators of such design
ind construction as shall be approved by the Board, shall be provided
and maintained in every maternity hospital having deliveries of as
many as one hundred patients per year.

(9) Isolation facilities shall be available and used for the isolation
of infected patients. All necessary precautions shall be taken to
prevent the spread of infection to other persons.

(10) Adequate provision shall be made for sanitation, general
hygiene, and for the protection and handling of food.

(11) A maternity hospital shall keep a current register of births
with all data required for the issuance of a birth certificate. Such
data shall be recorded within twenty-four hours after the admittance,
death or discharge of every mother; or after the birth, death or dis-
charge of every newborn infant. Such records shall be available to
the Board, or its agents, for inspection at all reasonable times.

Section 5. Inspection.—(a) The Board or its duly authorized
agents shall inspect and shall be permitted to inspect every maternity
hospital operated or maintained in this State or any room or depart-
ment thereof, whenever it shall be deemed necessary, and the person
or persons in charge thereof shall give the Board and its agents the
information required, and afford them every reasonable facility for
observing the operation of such hospital.

(b) Every maternity hospital in which any unmarried women
are received as maternity patients shall be subject to visitation and
inspection by the officers and agents of the State Department of
Public Welfare, which department shall have the right to inquire
into the social service policies and practices of every such hospital
pertaining to unmarried women and their children, and for this pur-
pose its officers and agents shall be afforded convenient and reason-
able access to the premises, books and records of such hospital by
the person or persons in charge thereof.

Section 6. Revocation of and refusal to grant permits; appeals.—
(a) The Board may refuse to grant a permit to any applicant, or may
revoke any permit granted, whenever such applicant or person to
whom such permit was granted shall fail or refuse to comply with
any provision of this act, or, in the case of a permit already granted,
if a greater number of patients be kept at one time than the maximum
prescribed by the permit, or if any building, floor, or room be used
for any purpose other than that designated on such permit. When-
ever a permit is refused to be granted or is revoked, the Board shall
immediately notify, in writing, the applicant or person whose permit
is so refused to be granted or revoked, as the case may be.

(b) Whenever the Board revokes or refuses to grant any such
permit, the person whose permit is so revoked, or to whom a permit
is refused to be granted, shall have a right to appeal to the Circuit
Court of the county or to the Corporation Court of the city whereir
such hospital is located; or, if it be in a city having no Corporation
Court, to the Circuit Court of such city; provided, that notice tc
commence the proceedings be served upon the Board within thirty
days after such person receives notice, in writing, of such revocatior
or refusal. Any such case may be heard by the court or judge thereo:
in vacation upon ten days written notice to the Board, which notice
shall be served and returned as provided in section six hundred and
forty-one of the Code of Virginia. The court may hear the case after
the said ten days notice whether the proceedings be matured for
hearing at the beginning of the then current or last preceding term
of such court or not. If the decision of the court be for the plaintiff
the court shall order the Board to reinstate or to grant the permit,
as the case may be, upon such terms as the court may prescribe, but
if otherwise the proceedings shall be dismissed. Costs shall be awarded
as in criminal cases. In any such proceedings the Board shall be
named as defendant and a writ of error from the decision of such
circuit or corporation court shall lie in the Supreme Court of Appeals
at the suit of either party.

Section 7. Penalty, injunction; effect of appeal—(a) Any person
who shall maintain or operate a maternity hospital without having
obtained the permit required by this act, or after his permit is re-
voked, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction thereof,
shall be punished by a fine of not less than five hundred nor more
than one thousand dollars.

(b) Any court of record having chancery jurisdiction in the
county or city where any such hospital is located shall have jurisdic-
tion to enjoin the operation of any such hospital maintained without
such permit, at the suit of the Board.

(c) An appeal, taken as hereinbefore provided from the decision
of the Board revoking or refusing to issue a permit, shall operate to
stay any prosecution hereunder and to suspend the operation of any
such injunction pending a final disposition of such appeal, and if the
court in such proceedings order the permit to be reinstated or granted
by the Board, a prosecution hereunder shall be barred.

Section 8. Exemptions.—None of the following persons shall be
deemed to maintain a maternity hospital for the purposes of this act:

(1) Any person who receives and cares for not more than one
woman during any one period of twelve months;

(2) Persons who shall receive and care for women related to such
person by blood or marriage only; and

(3) Licensed physicians who receive women at their offices for
occasional examination and treatment only.

2. Be it further enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia,
That an act entitled ‘“‘An act to provide for the licensing, regulation,
and inspection of maternity hospitals, and to repeal sections nineteen
hundred and twenty-five to nineteen hundred and thirty, inclusive, of
the Code of Virginia.”, approved March twenty-seventh, nineteen
hundred and twenty-two, and all other acts or parts of acts in conflict
with this act be, and the same are hereby, repealed; provided, how-
ever, that the said repeal shall not take effect until January first,
nineteen hundred and forty-one and the provisions of the said act
shall remain in full force and effect until that date.