2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE THREE - Executive (§§ 1 — 9311) › Chapter 11 - Department of Health (§§ 171 — 206) › § 178 - Regulations to prevent diseases and protect public health

The Secretary of Health shall have power to prescribe, repeal, and amend rules and regulations:
(1) For the purpose of preventing and suppressing infectious, contagious or epidemic diseases.
(2) In order to protect public health in any service, business, activity, or case which may affect public health, such as the water supply service, food and beverages, construction of buildings, ventilation of buildings, drainage, plumbing installations, hotels, inns, boarding houses, sleeping houses, cafes, restaurants, eating houses, canteens, tenement houses, private dwellings, houses in general, schools, factories, workshops, industrial establishments, slaughterhouses and slaughtering, meat markets, markets, garbage, transportation of garbage and organic fertilizers, cleaning of latrines and sinks, public ways, railroads, street railways, hospitals, maisons de sante, sanatoriums, animals, corpses, cemeteries, interments and disinterments, autopsies, embalmings, barber and hairdressing shops, beauty salons, public baths, etc.; Provided, That nothing contained in this section shall authorize the promulgation of regulations that will deprive a female employee of the privilege of selecting the physician who is to make the examinations as to her physical condition. The Secretary of Health shall, by regulations, define the class of sanitary appliances to be installed and maintained in public and private buildings; shall prescribe rules and regulations for the burial and transportation of cadavers, and the regulations to be observed in respect to reporting, isolating, and treating infectious or contagious diseases, and guarding from contamination all streams from which water for drinking or domestic purposes is taken.
(3) To establish a protocol, system, or program, among other administrative measures as necessary in order to institute multi-[sectored] system for uniform and coordinated management of traumas and medical emergencies in Puerto Rico.
The above mentioned system shall seek but is not limited to the following objectives:
(a) The creation of a uniform protocol throughout the Island for the management and transportation of trauma patients.
(b) The integration of all transportation services for trauma patients into the Trauma and Medical Emergency System.
(c) The establishment of a Designation Process for Trauma and Stabilization Centers.
(d) The creation of a National Trauma Register.
(e) The creation of a quality assurance program, to include all phases involved in the care of trauma patients.
(f) Providing advice and collaboration to the Legislature when preparing or to improve legislation that seeks to extend or strengthen medical malpractice coverage for participants of the Trauma and Medical Emergency System.
(g) Coordinating all efforts and creating new prevention programs.
(h) The creation of subsidy and incentive programs so as to help institutions to defray partial expenses incurred in the establishment of the Trauma and Medical Emergency System of Puerto Rico.
(i) The adoption of any other initiatives necessary for the working order and effectiveness of the Trauma and Medical Emergency System herein instituted.
History —Mar. 14, 1912, No. 81, p. 122, § 12; May 10, 1945, No. 156, p. 528, § 1; Sept. 30, 2004, No. 544, § 1.