Community Behavioral Health Services - San Francisco Department ...

Patients’ RightsMental Health (Lanterman - Petris - Short Act)According to Welfare and Institutions Code Section 5001, all provisions of the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (LPS Act) are tobe interpreted to promote the following legislative purposes:(a) To end the inappropriate, indefinite and involuntary commitment of mentally disordered persons,developmentally disabled persons, and persons impaired by chronic alcoholism, and to eliminate legaldisabilities;(b) To provide prompt evaluation and treatment of persons who have serious mental disorders or who are impairedby chronic alcoholism;(c) To guarantee and protect public safety;(d) To safeguard individual rights through judicial review;(e) To provide individualized treatment, supervision and placement services by a conservatorship program forgravely disabled persons;(f) To encourage the full use of all existing agencies, professional personnel and public funds to accomplish theseobjectives and to prevent duplication of services and unnecessary expenditures;(g) To protect mentally disordered persons and developmentally disabled persons from criminal acts.People with psychiatric disabilities who are hospitalized involuntarily—and are often in dire need of mental health care,medical treatment and other services—face a massive curtailment of basic human rights. These rights deprivationsinclude everything from being forbidden to wear one’s own clothes to being physically restrained, and forcibly medicated.Consequently, in the California cases evaluating the potential for such rights deprivations, the courts have repeatedlyaffirmed the Legislature’s unmistakable intent that the rights of involuntarily detained persons with psychiatric disabilitiesmust be “scrupulously” protected by the LPS Act. The LPS Act expressly guarantees a number of legal and civil rights andprovides that involuntarily detained mental health clients retain all rights not specifically denied under the statutoryscheme. (See Welfare & Institution Code Secs. 5325.1 and 5327).The LPS Act specifically requires that treatment, rehabilitation and recovery services be provided in the least restrictivemanner possible. The LPS Act also specifically mandates that persons with mental illness have a right to treatmentservices that promote the potential of the person to function independently and safeguard the personal liberty of theindividual (Welfare & Institutions Code. Sec. 5325.1(a)). Therefore, the LPS Act permits involuntary hospitalization onlyof those mentally disabled persons for whom such confinement, with its accompanying severe deprivation of liberty, isnecessary and appropriate.Under the LPS Act, the more intrusive and fundamental the right, the more stringent the due process standards ofprotection for that right. So strong is the statutory protection of certain rights that a number of rights under LPS cannotbe denied under any circumstances. These “undeniable rights,” codified in Welfare and Institutions Code Section 5325.1,include:• A right to dignity, privacy, and humane care.• A right to be free from harm, including unnecessary or excessive physical restraint, isolation, medication, abuse,or neglect. Medication shall not be used as punishment, for the convenience of staff, as a substitute for aprogram, or in quantities that interfere with the treatment program.• A right to prompt medical care and treatment.• A right to participate in appropriate programs of publicly supported education.• A right to social interaction and participation in community activities.• A right to physical exercise and recreational opportunities.• A right to be free from hazardous procedures.The office of the San Francisco Mental Health Clients’ Rights Advocates can be reached at 552-8100 or 800-729-7727.87