N.Y. General Municipal Law § 135-b: Departments of occupational therapy in connection with public general hospitals and tuberculosis hospitals or sanatoria

§ 135-b. Departments of occupational therapy in connection with public

general hospitals and tuberculosis hospitals or sanatoria. Any municipal

corporation maintaining a public general hospital or a hospital or

sanatorium for the treatment of tuberculosis under the provisions of any

general or special law may establish, equip and maintain, in connection

therewith, a department of occupational therapy. For the purpose of this

section occupational therapy is defined as any activity, mental or

physical, prescribed, guided or supervised for any patient for the

purpose of contributing to and hastening his recovery from disease or

injury. The appropriate municipal authorities may appropriate or provide

funds for the establishment, equipment and operation of such

occupational therapy departments in the same manner as for the

establishment, equipment and operation of such public general hospitals,

tuberculosis hospitals or sanatoria. Such occupational therapy

department shall be under the general superintendence, management and

control of the municipal authority, board of managers, or other agency

having general superintendence, management and control of the public

general hospital, tuberculosis hospital or sanatorium to which it may be

attached.

The chief medical officer of such public general hospital,

tuberculosis hospital or sanatorium shall have authority to employ one

or more occupational therapists to carry on the work of such department

under his supervision. The qualifications of occupational therapists so

employed shall be defined by the public health and health planning

council.

The chief medical officer of the institution may sell any article made

or manufactured by any patient in his prescribed curative work carried

on in such occupational therapy department to such patient upon payment

by such patient to such chief medical officer of a sum not less than the

cost of the material or materials from which such article was made or

manufactured. Such chief medical officer may, in behalf of any patient,

dispose of any article, made or manufactured by him, at public or

private sale, and from moneys derived from the sale of such article he

may pay to the patient such portion thereof that the residue shall at

least equal the cost of the material or materials.

Except in the case of hospitals or sanatoria maintained by counties

having a county purchasing agent, the municipal authority, board of

managers, or other agency having general superintendence, management and

control of such public general hospital, tuberculosis hospital or

sanatorium, may place the moneys accruing to the occupational therapy

department, from the two sources hereinabove mentioned, in a fund, to be

known as "The Occupational Therapy Fund. " The moneys in such fund at

any time shall not exceed the sum of five hundred dollars. All receipts

in excess of such sum, or all receipts, if such fund be not established,

shall be paid into the treasury of the municipal corporation operating

such hospital or sanatorium. The chief medical officer of the

institution may directly purchase with moneys from "The Occupational

Therapy Fund," if such a fund shall have been established, such

materials, in addition to those provided for the operation of such

occupational therapy department as hereinabove authorized, as are

necessary to the proper functioning of such department.

The chief medical officer may, in his discretion and if he deems such

course to be in the best interest of any patient, temporarily withhold

any or all moneys earned by such patient and shall give such moneys to

such patient upon discharge.