Session Laws

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

SECTION 1. Section 9 of chapter 46 of the General Laws is hereby amended by adding the following paragraph:-

A registered physician assistant, after the death of a person who was a patient under the care of such physician assistant, may declare such person dead; provided, however, that said physician assistant first makes a reasonable effort to contact the attending physician or medical examiner before making such determination or pronouncement; provided, further, that such determination or pronouncement be made in writing on a form approved by the commissioner of public health and subscribed under pains and penalties of perjury; and, provided further, that the medical examiner be notified forthwith of the exact location to which the decedent has been removed.

SECTION 2. The chief medical examiner shall report to the house and senate committees on ways and means, within sixty days of the effective date of this act, a plan for the location of a satellite medical examiner's office to be located at the City Hospital campus of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. The medical examiner shall also report to said committees recommendations to establish a next of kin notification sequence to allow for more than one individual to identify a deceased person in the event the immediate next of kin is unavailable.