As used in this chapter:
(a) "Anesthesia" means a state of loss of feeling or sensation and is normally used to denote the loss of sensation to pain purposely induced by the use of a specific gas or drug to permit the performance of surgery or other painful procedure.
(b) "Anesthesiologist" means a physician specializing in the field of anesthesiology, who may or may not be a diplomate of his or her specialty board.
(c) "Anesthetic" menas a drug, gas or other agent used to abolish the sensation of pain. There are three classifications as follows:
(1) "General anesthetic" means an anesthetic agent which produces a temporary loss of consciousness by the administration of a gas; oral, intramuscular and intravenous drugs; or a combination of these methods.
(2) "Local anesthetic" means a drug whose action is limited to an area of the body around the site of its application.
(3) "Spinal," "epidural" or "caudal" anesthetic means the injection of an appropriate local type of anesthetic into the spinal canal, epidural area, to produce a local loss of sensitivity to the body areas at and below the sensory nerve distribution at the level of injection.
(d) "Anesthetist" means a person qualified to administer an anesthetic. In common usage the term applies to nurses and lay persons who have had special training and experience under medical auspices in the administration of anesthetics.
(e) "Conception" means the union of the male sperm and the female ovum.
(f) "Department" means the Department of Welfare of the City, consisting of the Mayor, who is the Director, and/or his or her authorized representative.
(g) "Director" means the Director of the Department of Welfare of the City.
(h) "Freestanding surgical outpatient facility" means a medical surgical facility which provides for its patients, on a continuing and regular basis, a limited range of surgical procedures which, in the opinion of the attending physician, do not require in-patient hospital confinement.
(i) "Health" means physical or mental health and welfare.
(j) "Hospital" means a general hospital or specialized hospital devoted to gynecology or obstetrics which is accredited by the American College of Physicians, the American College of Surgeons, the American Hospital Association or the American Medical Association, or which is accredited by the Office of Hospital Affairs of the American Osteopathic Association.
(k) "Nurse" means a person currently licensed or registered as such by the State.
(l) "Physician" means a person currently licensed to practice medicine or osteopathy by the State.
(m) "Pregnancy termination" means abortion, which is the purposeful termination of a human pregnancy by any person, including the pregnant woman herself, with an intention other than to produce a live birth or to remove a dead unborn child. The terms "pregnancy termination" and "abortion" are identical.
(n) "Surgery" means the treatment of human beings by a physician, by the use of one or more of the following procedures:
(1) Cutting into any part of the body by surgical scalpel, electro-cautery or other means for diagnosis or the removal or repair of diseased or damaged tissue, organs, tumors or foreign bodies;
(2) Reduction of fractures or dislocations of a bone, joint or bony structure;
(3) Repair of malformations or body defects resulting from injury, birth defects or other causes that require cutting and manipulation or suture;
(4) Instrumentation of the uterine cavity including the procedure commonly known as dilation;
(5) Instrumentation of, or injection of any substance into, the uterine cavity of a woman for the purpose of terminating a pregnancy;
(6) Human sterilization procedures; and
(7) Endoscopic procedures.
(o) "Unborn child" means the unborn offspring of human beings from the time of conception, through pregnancy and until live birth, including the human conceptus, fertilized ovum or zygota, embryo and fetus.
(p) 'Viable fetus" means a fetus which is capable of surviving outside of the womb of the mother upon premature birth, whether resulting from natural causes or abortion or otherwise, and whether or not such capacity exists in part due to the provision or availability of natural or artificial life-support systems.
(Ord. 1978-72. Passed 10-18-78.)