§325-79 Isolation of tubercular person. If any person who has active communicable tuberculosis refuses to be isolated or hospitalized for the person's tuberculosis after having been notified by the department of health that the person has active communicable tuberculosis, any judge of any district court of the State or any judge of any circuit court of the State may, upon satisfactory application to the judge by the department, notice to the person, hearing of the person and the person's witnesses and consideration of the person's evidence, and proof that the person has active communicable tuberculosis and will be a source of exposing another to the disease, order the person to be isolated and hospitalized in a hospital in the State in which the person can be properly isolated and hospitalized for active communicable tuberculosis; provided that nothing in this part shall have the effect of requiring or giving any court, health officer, or other person the right to compel any person to go to or be confined in a hospital or other medical institution if the person can be safely quarantined in the person's own home or other suitable place of the person's choice. An affidavit of a physician of the department or of a physician who is duly licensed in the State that the physician has caused to be made a sputum or gastric examination of the person for tubercle bacilli in a laboratory accepted by the department and a chest x-ray examination of the person for active communicable tuberculosis and believes from the examination that the person has active communicable tuberculosis may be received as prima facie evidence that the person has active communicable tuberculosis and should be ordered under sections 325-79 to 325-84 to be isolated and hospitalized in a hospital in which the person can be properly isolated and hospitalized for tuberculosis. [L 1949, c 307, §1; RL 1955, §49-72; am L Sp 1959 2d, c 1, §19; HRS §325-79; am L 1970, c 188, §39; gen ch 1985]