Newington Children's Hospital may admit any child who is handicapped or afflicted with any pediatric illness upon application of the selectmen of any town, or the guardian or any relative of such child, or any public health agency or physician, provided, no person shall be admitted primarily for the treatment of any drug-related condition. Said hospital shall admit such child to said hospital if such child is pronounced by the physicians on the staff of said hospital, after examination, to be suitable for admission, and said hospital shall keep and support such child for such length of time as it deems proper. Said hospital shall not be required to admit any such child unless it can conveniently receive and care for such child at the time application is made and said hospital may return to the town in which such child resides any child so taken who is pronounced by the physicians on the staff of said hospital, after examination, to be unsuitable for retention or who, by reason of improvement in his condition or completion of his treatment or training, ought not to be further retained. The hospital may refuse to admit any child pronounced by the physicians on the staff of said hospital, after examination, to be unsuitable for admission and may refuse to admit any such child when the facilities at the hospital will not, in the judgment of said physicians, permit the hospital to care for such child adequately and properly.

(1949 Rev., S. 2609; June, 1949, 1955, S. 1440d; 1959, P.A. 610, S. 1; P.A. 80-293, S. 1, 2.)

History: 1959 act changed name of hospital, substituted affliction with “noncontagious pediatric illness or handicapping physical condition” for “poliomyelitis or cerebral palsy or any uncontagious crippling disease,” deleted statement that child or relatives must be unable to pay and required that child be “suitable” rather than “fit” for admission; P.A. 80-293 changed admission requirement, substituting “handicapped” child for one “of sound mind who is a cripple”, allowing admission for any pediatric illness rather than for “noncontagious” illnesses alone and deleting reference to “handicapping physical condition”, and added proviso prohibiting admission “primarily for the treatment of any drug-related condition”; Sec. 17-307 transferred to Sec. 17b-233 in 1995.

Annotation to former section 17-307:

In tort action, no recovery allowed for value of services rendered gratuitously by state-supported or other public charity. 129 C. 207.