Where a county or municipal institution is operating for the care and treatment of tuberculous patients and the county commissioners or officers in charge of the municipal institution determine that it is no longer feasible to continue the institution as a county or municipal responsibility or to liquidate it, the commissioners or other authorized officers may with the approval of the commissioner of public health convey to the commonwealth the institution and so much of the estate on which it is situated as is used for the purposes of the institution and also the personal property owned by the county or municipality and held or used for the purposes of the institution. The commissioner of public health is hereby authorized to accept, subject to appropriation, such conveyance in the name and behalf of the commonwealth if at the time such offer of conveyance is made he determines that it is in the best interests of the commonwealth to accept such conveyance.
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 111, § 83