35-1-240. Powers and duties.

(a) The department of health, through the state health officer, or under his direction and supervision, through the other employees of the department, shall have and exercise the following powers and duties:

(i) To exercise in Wyoming, all the rights and powers and perform all duties hereunder;

(ii) To investigate and control the causes of epidemic, endemic, communicable, occupational and other diseases and afflictions, and physical disabilities resulting therefrom, affecting the public health;

(iii) To establish, maintain and enforce isolation and quarantine, and in pursuance thereof, and for such purpose only, to exercise such physical control over property and over the persons of the people within this state as the state health officer may find necessary for the protection of the public health;

(iv) To close theaters, schools and other public places, and to forbid gatherings of people when necessary to protect the public health;

(v) To abate nuisances when necessary for the protection of the public health;

(vi) To enforce such sanitary standards for the protection of public health as to the quality of water supplied to the public and as to the quality of the effluent of sewerage systems and trade wastes discharged upon the land or into the surface or ground waters of the state, as are or may be established by law, and to advise with municipalities, utilities, institutions, organizations and individuals, concerning the methods or processes believed by him best suited to provide the protection or purification of water and the treatment of sewage and trade wastes to meet such minimum standards;

(vii) To collect, compile, and tabulate reports of marriages, divorces and annulments, births, deaths and morbidity, and to require any person having information with regard to the same to make such reports;

(viii) To regulate the disposal, transportation, interment and disinterment of the dead;

(ix) To establish, maintain and approve chemical, bacteriological and biological laboratories and to conduct or require such laboratory investigations and examinations as it may deem necessary or proper for the protection of the public health;

(x) To make, approve, and require standard diagnostic tests and to prepare, distribute and require the completion of forms of certificates with respect thereto;

(xi) To purchase and to distribute to licensed physicians, with or without charge, as the department may determine, or to administer such vaccines, serums, toxoids and other approved biological or therapeutic products as may be necessary for the protection of the public health;

(xii) To exercise sanitary control over the use of water employed in the irrigation of vegetables or other edible crops intended for human consumption, and to exercise sanitary control over the use of fertilizer derived from excreta of human beings or from the sludge of sewage disposal plants. The state health officer shall have authority to impound any and all vegetables and other edible crops and meat and animal products intended for human consumption which have been grown or produced in violation of the orders, rules and regulations of the department, and upon five (5) days notice and after affording reasonable opportunity for a hearing, to the interested parties before the state health officer or his designee, to condemn and destroy the same if it deems such necessary for the protection of the public health;

(xiii) To certify, inspect and exercise sanitary control over hospitals, sanitoriums, convalescent homes, maternity homes, asylums, and other similar institutions;

(xiv) To establish standards and make sanitary, sewerage and health inspections for charitable, penal and other state and county institutions;

(xv) To enforce current sanitary standards, or those that may be established by law, for the operation and maintenance of lodging houses, hotels, public conveyances and stations, schools, factories, workshops, industrial and labor camps, recreational resorts and camps, and other buildings, centers and places used for public gatherings;

(xvi) To establish and enforce sanitary standards for the operation of toilet facilities in all garages, filling stations and other places of business which maintain such facilities for the convenience of their patrons;

(xvii) To disseminate public health information;

(xviii) To exercise all the rights and powers and perform all the duties vested in or imposed by law upon the state department of health, its officers and employees, as constituted before this act, becomes effective; to hold hearings, administer oaths, subpoena witnesses and take testimony in all matters relating to the exercise and performances of the powers and duties vested in or imposed upon the department;

(xix) To advise the director of the department about public health issues, programs and policies for the state;

(xx) To operate a public health nursing program which may include, but is not limited to, provision of immunizations, evaluation of the need of individuals for nursing home admission or services and the operation of an infant public health nurse home visitation subprogram. The public health nursing program may, where and to the extent appropriate, be administered through or in conjunction with county, municipal or district health departments;

(xxi) During a public health emergency as defined by W.S. 35-4-115(a)(i), the state health officer may prescribe pharmaceutical or therapeutic interventions en masse as necessary to protect the public health;

(xxii) Administer the Wyoming physician recruitment grant program provided in W.S. 35-1-1101;

(xxiii) If the duty is not assigned to another entity pursuant to W.S. 35-1-1202, develop initiatives and provide information to the public regarding palliative care as provided in W.S. 35-1-1203.

(b) In carrying out duties prescribed under paragraphs (a)(ii) and (vii) of this section, the department shall:

(i) Develop and require the uniform registration and reporting of medical information by hospitals, physicians and other health care providers as necessary to establish the Wyoming central tumor registry in accordance with the American college of surgeons guidelines;

(ii) By rule and regulation establish registration fees for hospitals, physicians or other health care providers required to register medical information with the registry under paragraph (b)(i) of this section in an amount to ensure that, to the extent practicable, the total revenue generated from the fees collected approximates but does not exceed the direct and indirect costs of administering and operating the registry. Fees collected under this paragraph shall be deposited in the general fund.