43:18-7. Membership

Except as hereinafter in this section provided the employees of any such local board or department of health who shall be entitled to accept the provisions of this chapter shall be the health officer or chief inspector employed by such board or department, all persons employed in the sanitary department of any such board, all persons regularly employed by any such board in the care of any tuberculosis or any other hospital which is or may be under the control of any such board, all persons actually engaged as physicians, nurses, or otherwise, in taking care of patients in any such tuberculosis or any other hospital, excepting visiting physicians not on the regular staff of any such hospital, and all persons employed in any dispensary or laboratory under the control and management of any such board, including chemists regularly employed by any such board; it being the intent of this paragraph to include under the provisions thereof all persons and employees on the payroll of any such department of health.

Every employee or officer as above defined, appointed after June second, one thousand nine hundred and thirty-seven, shall automatically become a member of the pension fund corporation from the date of appointment for service in the health department or city hospital, providing such employee or officer has been passed by the corporation's physician as mentally and physically eligible for membership.

No employee or officer who has attained the age of forty years, shall be eligible to become a member of such pension fund corporation.

The terms of this chapter shall not serve to involuntarily enroll any employee eligible to membership who is already entitled by virtue of qualifying prior military service to pension benefits established by law for war veterans.

All persons employed by any such board or department of health who are eligible to membership in the pension fund shall be permitted to take the immediate advantage of this chapter.