Calexico Municipal Code Ch. 8.04 Health Officer

The office of health officer of the city is established.

(Prior code § 3111)

The health officer shall be appointed by the council and shall hold office at the pleasure of the council.

(Prior code § 3112)

The compensation of the health officer is fixed at the sum of ten dollars per month.

(Prior code § 3113)

It shall be the duty of the health officer, under the direction and control of the council, to enforce all laws, ordinances and regulations relating to the causes of sickness, nuisances and sources of filth existing within the city.

(Prior code § 3114)

A. No Charge to City. The health officer shall attend all cases of sickness of those prisoners confined in the city jail who are in the charge of the chief of police, when requested to do so by the chief of police, without any expense or charge to the city.

B. Charge for Medicine to Indigents. For all medicine furnished to indigent prisoners, a bill therefor may be presented as other claims against the city.

C. Collection of Charge from Nonindigents. The health officer is not precluded from collecting his usual charges from such prisoners as are able to pay the same.

(Prior code §§ 3114.1—3114.3)

It shall be the duty of any and all physicians treating or having charge of any case or cases of contagious or infectious disease within the city to placard the house where said contagion or infection exists, and otherwise enforce a strict quarantine to the extent of minimizing the contagion or infection, and report the same forthwith to the health officer.

(Prior code § 3115)

Should any physician be called to treat, or come in contact with, or have knowledge of, any case or cases of smallpox, typhus, or yellow fever, or leprosy within the limits of the city, he shall enforce the strictest quarantine possible. It shall be the duty of the health officer to remove any such patients, if such removal can be accomplished without danger to life, to pest house or other places of safety, and otherwise enforce such quarantine measures as he may deem wise and expedient in the interest of the general health of the community.

(Prior code § 3116)

No person or persons, except the physician, clergyman or undertaker, and those having written permit from the health officer, shall enter or depart from any house where smallpox, cholera or any other dangerous, contagious or infectious disease exists, or while the corpse of any person who has died of such disease remains within the house, or within ten days thereafter, or until said building and its contents have been disinfected or otherwise disposed of to the satisfaction of the health officer.

(Prior code § 3117)

A. Any person attending upon or otherwise coming in contact with any contagious or infectious disease in such manner or to such extent as to render him or her liable to contract said disease or to communicate said disease to others shall not go into any public place or assembly, or mingle with other persons not affected with such infectious or contagious disease.

B. Quarantine. If, in the judgment of the health officer, it is necessary that such person so exposed be quarantined, then a quarantine of said person shall be established and shall be continued until the danger of communicating such contagious or infectious disease has passed.

C. Breaking Quarantine. It is unlawful for said person so quarantined to leave the quarantined premises without the written consent of the health officer.

(Prior code §§ 3117.1—3117.3)

A. Entering Premises to Inspect. It shall be the duty of the health officer, or any public officer when necessary to secure the public health, to enter upon the premises or in the house or other place of any person to discover or inspect any nuisance that may exist there, to inspect drains, vaults, cellars, cesspools, water closets, privies or sewers, or the yards of such premises, to examine into their condition.

B. Abatement Notice. When satisfied that apartments used for lodging and other purposes are improperly constructed or liable from overcrowding or filth to become dangerous to public health, or to disseminate contagion or infectious disease, or are not provided with privies, water closets or with sewers, drains or cesspools properly trapped, they, or any of them, shall serve a written notice upon the owner or other person in charge of such premises to remove the nuisance therein named.

C. Failure of Owner to Abate. If such owner or other person in charge neglects to obey such notice, the health officer shall forthwith report the same to the council, who shall at once require the city attorney to take the necessary steps to have the same abated as a public nuisance.

(Prior code §§ 3118—3118.2)

It is unlawful for any person to resist or attempt to resist the entrance of the health officer into any railroad car, stage, vehicle, building, room, lot, or other place in the city in the performance of his duty, or to refuse to obey any lawful order of the health officer when made in the performance of his duties or within the powers conferred by this chapter or by law.

(Prior code § 3118.3)