Section 1. The city council shall appoint a health officer, whose term of service shall be one year; he shall be a physician and possessed of other necessary qualifications of a member of the board of health as hereinafter provided, and shall have general supervision of the city hospitals and dispensaries, and perform such other duties as the city council shall prescribe.
Section 2. The city council shall establish a board of health, which board shall consist of three members, who shall be physicians and graduates of regular medical schools, and shall have been at the time of their appointment, resident and practicing physicians in the city for at least one year immediately preceding such appointment.
Section 3. The members of the board of health shall be appointed by the city council, and the health officer shall be a member of said board and president thereof. Immediately after their appointments said board shall proceed to elect a clerk (not of its members), who shall be a fit and competent person to perform the duties of clerk of the board, and who shall likewise be a graduate physician of some medical school. Vacancies occurring in the board by expiration of the time of service, resignation or otherwise, shall be filled by the appointment of the city council.
Section 4. The board of health is charged with a general supervision over the public health of the city, and to see that its rules and regulations and the laws and ordinances of the city, in relation thereto, are enforced and observed.
Section 5. Said board shall, when it deems necessary, appoint resident physicians for the city hospitals, for the quarantine, and select all other officers for said board, as well as for the city hospitals, and fix the compensation for such person, and select a suitable place for the meeting of the board.
Section 6. The board of health shall meet at least twice a month, between the first day of April and the first day of November of each year, and oftener if necessity requires, and during the remainder of the year when called by the president.
Section 7. The said board of health shall have power to appoint one or more sanitary inspectors at such times as it shall deem proper who shall have authority to enter into and examine in the daytime all buildings, lots and places of every description within the city, and to ascertain and report to the board of the condition thereof, so far as the public health may be affected thereby.
Section 8. The board of health shall give all such directions and adopt all such measures for cleansing and purifying all such buildings, lots, and other places, and to do or cause to be done everything in relation thereto which in its opinion shall be deemed necessary. Every person who shall disobey any order of the board of health which shall have been personally served upon him to abate or remove any nuisance in the manner and at the time prescribed in the order, shall, on complaint of the board of health, or of any person serving such order, before the city recorder, be liable for arrest and punishment for each offense by a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars ($500.00), or imprisonment not exceeding thirty (30) days, or both such fine and imprisonment.
Section 9. It shall be lawful for the board of health, in all cases when it may be deemed necessary for the more speedy execution of its orders, to cause any such nuisance or nuisances to be abated or removed at the expense of the city, and to cause any such nuisance or nuisances which may exist upon the property of non-resident owners or where the owners of such property cannot be found, or are unknown and cannot be ascertained, to cause any such nuisances to be abated and removed in like manner at the expense of the city, and the sum or sums so expended in the abatement or removal of such nuisances in such cases with lawful interest thereon, shall be an encumbrance, as any tax upon real estate, upon the lots or premises from or upon which said nuisance or nuisances shall be abated or removed, and payment thereof may be enforced in like manner as other taxes upon real estate authorized to be levied by the city.
Section 10. It shall be the duty of the board of health to cause any avenue, street or alley, or other passage whatever to be fenced up or otherwise enclosed if it thinks that the public safety requires it and to adopt suitable measures to prevent all persons from going to any part of the city so enclosed, except by authority; by resolution, to direct any bedding, clothing, putrid or unsound beef, pork, fish, hides or skins of any kind, or any other articles found within the city, and which in its opinion shall be dangerous to the inhabitants thereof, to be destroyed in such manner as it may direct; and it may employ such persons as it may deem proper to remove or destroy such articles; and any person who shall in any manner resist or hinder any person so employed, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor of an ordinance, and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine not exceeding one hundred dollars ($100.00) or imprisonment not exceeding thirty (30) days or both, and all such fines, when collected, shall be paid into the city treasury; to procure suitable places for the reception of persons sick of any pestilential, infectious or contagious diseases, and in all cases, when sick persons cannot otherwise be provided for, to procure for them medicine, medical and other proper attendance and provisions, to forbid and prevent all communication with the house and family infected with any contagious, infectious or pestilential disease except by means of physicians, nurses and messengers, to carry the necessary advice, medicines and provisions to the afflicted; to publish from time to time all such regulations as it shall make, in such manner as to secure early and full publicity thereto.
Section 11. The board of health during the prevalence of Asiatic cholera, or any epidemic disease, when by it deemed necessary, shall have power to take possession of and occupy for temporary hospitals, any suitable building or buildings in the city; but the City of Chillicothe shall pay for private property, so taken, a just compensation for the same.
Section 12. It shall be the duty of the board of health on complaint being made to it, or whenever it shall deem any business, trade or profession carried on by any person or persons or corporations within the sanitary jurisdiction of the city, detrimental to the public health, to notify such person or persons or corporations to show cause before the board of health at a time and place to be specified in such notice, why the same should not be discontinued or removed, which notice shall not be a notice of less than three days; except in cases of epidemic and pestilence, the board of health may, by general order, direct a shorter time, not less than twenty-four (24) hours, and may be served by leaving same at the place of business or residence of the parties to be affected thereby. Cause may be shown by affidavit, and if in the opinion of the board of health no good and sufficient cause be shown why the same should not be discontinued, or removed, the board shall order the said parties to discontinue or remove the same within such time as the board may deem reasonable or necessary, and the order of the board shall be final and conclusive therein.
Section 13. Any person failing or refusing to obey such lawful order of said board of health, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by a fine of not more than one hundred dollars ($100.00), or by imprisonment of not more than thirty (30) days, or by both such fine and imprisonment; and such person or persons shall be subject to like punishment for each and every day he, she or they shall continue such business, trade or profession after the time specified in the order of the board of health for the removal of the same.
Section 14. Such fines, as mentioned in the preceding section, shall be collected as other fines, and when so collected, shall be paid into the city treasury.
Section 15. It shall be the duty of each and every practicing physician in the City of Chillicothe:
First:
Whenever required by the board of health, to report to such board at such time and in such form as it may prescribe, the number of persons attacked with any pestilential, contagious or infectious diseases attended by such physician for the twenty-four hours next preceding and the number of persons attended by such physician who shall have died within the twenty-four hours next preceding such report, of any such pestilential, contagious, or infectious disease.
Second:
To report in writing to said board of health every patient who shall have been laboring under any pestilential or infectious diseases within the twenty-four hours after he shall ascertain or suspect the nature of such disease.
Third:
To report to the board of health, when by it required, the death of any patient who shall have died of any disease within twenty-four hours from the time of such death, and to state in such report the specific nature and type of such disease.
[Amended by Ord. No. 2001-99 enacted November 26, 2001, and approved in the election of February 5, 2002]
Section 16. Any practicing physician who shall neglect or refuse to perform the duties required of him, by or in any of the foregoing sections, shall be considered guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars ($500.00) for each offense, to be collected and paid into the city treasury as other fines.
Section 17. The members of the board shall each receive such a salary for their services as the city council shall from time to time determine, and the city council shall, in making their annual appropriations for the expenses of the city government, estimate and appropriate such sums as may be necessary for the payment of the salaries and compensation of the members of the board, and of such other medical officers, and all other servants and employees as they are herein authorized to appoint and employ, and all other necessary expenses incurred by the board in the performance of their duties herein prescribed, and which expenses shall be audited and all owed and paid as other expenses of the city government.
Section 18. The city council shall have power to further define the duties of the board of health, and to pass such ordinances in aid of the power of the board of health as may tend to promote and secure the general health of the inhabitants of the city.
Section 19. It shall be the duty of all magistrates and civil officers, and all citizens, to aid, to the utmost of their power, the board of health in the performance of their duties, as herein prescribed.