South Carolina § 44-22-120 - Patients' rights; communication with outside; visitors; personal belongings and effects; clothing; religious practice; limits on rights made part of record and valid no more than 30 days.

§ 44-22-120. Patients' rights; communication with outside; visitors; personal belongings and effects; clothing; religious practice; limits on rights made part of record and valid no more than 30 days.

(A) Except to the extent the director of the facility determines it is required by the medical needs or safety of the patient to impose restrictions, a patient may:

(1) communicate by sealed mail, telephone, or otherwise with persons, including official agencies, inside or outside the institution. Reasonable access to writing materials, stamps, and envelopes must be provided. Reasonable access to telephones including funds or means in which to use telephones must be provided. The head of a residential program determines what constitutes reasonable access;

(2) receive visitors including unrestricted visits by legal counsel, private physicians, or members of the clergy or an advocate of the South Carolina Protection and Advocacy System for the Handicapped, Inc., if the visits take place at reasonable hours or by appointment, or both. Each facility must have a designated area where patients and visitors may speak privately if they desire;

(3) wear his own clothes, have access to personal hygiene articles, keep and spend a reasonable sum of his own money, and keep and use his own personal possessions including articles for personal grooming not provided for by the facility unless the clothes or personal possessions are determined by a mental health professional to be dangerous or otherwise inappropriate to the treatment regimen. If clothing is provided by the facility, patients may select from neat, clean, seasonal clothing that allows the patient to appear normal in the community. To the extent staff determines a patient is able and willing to care for and maintain the patient's own clothing, the patient must be assisted in maintaining this clothing during the patient's stay in the facility;

(4) have access to secure individual storage space for his private use. Personal property of a patient brought into the hospital and placed in storage by the hospital must be inventoried. Receipts must be given to the patient and at least one other interested person. The personal property may be reclaimed only by the patient, his spouse, or his parent or guardian as long as he is living unless otherwise ordered by the court. If property belonging to a patient is not reclaimed within ninety days following the patient's discharge or death, the property may be utilized by the Office of Mental Health for the benefit of other patients or programs ten days after written notice is sent to the individual or the individual's family at the last known address;

(5) follow religious practices. Religious practices may be prohibited by the facility director if they lead to physical harm to the patient or to others, harassment of other patients, or damage to property.

(B) All limitations imposed by the director of a residential program on the exercise of these rights by the patient and the reasons for the limitations must be made part of the clinical record of the patient. These limitations are valid for no more than thirty days.

HISTORY: 1991 Act No. 127, SECTION 1; 1992 Act No. 279, SECTIONS 5, 6.

Code Commissioner's Note

At the direction of the Code Commissioner, certain references in the S.C. Code to the State Department of Mental Health, South Carolina Mental Health Commission, Department of Disabilities and Special Needs, Department of Disabilities and Special Needs Commission, Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services, and other related terms were changed to reflect the restructuring of these agencies into component offices under the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, pursuant to 2025 Act No. 3, SECTION 18.