2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE TWENTY-FOUR - Health and Sanitation (§§ 1 — 15010) › PART I - Hospitals, Institutions, And Health Programs (§§ 1 — 343k) › Chapter 18 - Protection and Security of Infants (§§ 322 — 328) › § 324 - Powers and duties of the Secretary of Health

The Secretary shall have the powers that are necessary and convenient to execute the purposes and the provisions of this chapter, including, without it being understood as a limitation, the following:
(1) Shall be the official responsible for the faithful compliance of the public policy set forth in this chapter.
(2) Shall prescribe the indicators that shall govern the security measures and procedures that the public and private hospital institutions with special neonatal wards, obstetric areas and pediatric departments shall adopt to comply with the following purposes:
(a) Prevent kidnapping or stealing of newborn infants;
(b) assist in the identification of infants that have disappeared, through methods that guarantee the reliability and certainty of the children’s identity in the event they are located.
(3) Take into consideration when designing the security procedures for hospitals, the size of the hospital, its location and the number of births that occur in the hospital institution.
(4) Require all kinds of reports related to the safety and protection measures implemented in the hospitals in order to evaluate their efficiency and effectiveness.
(5) Request or contract the services of experts or consultants in security systems and technology that is applicable to safety in the hospitals, so that they can collaborate in the analysis and evaluation of the infant safety and protection programs implemented in hospital institutions.
(6) Coordinate, when convenient and necessary, with federal and Commonwealth public safety agencies, to provide technical support and assistance regarding methods to prevent the kidnapping and stealing of children in hospitals.
(7) Prescribe, amend and enforce regulations and standards for the development, establishing and execution of safety and protection programs, pursuant to the parameters contained in this chapter.
(8) Perform the needed inspections and investigations in order to ensure that hospital institutions are fully compliant with the statutory and regulatory provisions on safety measures or orders issued pursuant to this chapter.
(9) Evaluate the internal policy and prevention procedures established by hospitals to determine if they meet the requirements established in this chapter.
(10) Promote participation and collaboration between the public and private sector in the development of community orientation campaigns addressed to provide information regarding methods, techniques and measures that will contribute effectively to prevent kidnapping and stealing of children in hospital institutions.
The provisions of this chapter shall be liberally construed in order to achieve its purposes, and wherever a specific power or authority is conferred to the Secretary, the enumeration shall not be interpreted as to exclude or prevent any other power or authority otherwise conferred thereupon. The Secretary shall have the powers enumerated in this chapter, as well as all additional implicit or incidental powers that are proper and necessary to carry out and execute, perform and exercise all the abovementioned powers, and to achieve the purposes of this chapter.
History —June 18, 1999, No. 133, § 4.