Webinar:
Patients’ Rights - Understanding our Legal Rights is a Necessity

Learning about Patients’ Rights is necessary if we wish to self-advocate or advocate for persons in mental health facilities. Persons who have been placed in facilities due to a mental health disability have legal rights guaranteed by the Constitution. However, these rights can be specifically limited by federal or state laws or regulations. Let’s have a conversation about our legal rights in mental health facilities so that we can understand them and know how to advocate for them.

About the webinar:

Welfare and Institutions Code Section 5325 ensures the protection of certain basic rights such as the right to be free from harm, including unnecessary or excessive physical restraint, medication, isolation, abuse and neglect. We have the right to treatment services which promote our potential to function independently. Treatment should be provided in ways that are least restrictive of our liberty. No right should be unreasonably denied or punitively withheld. Before a right can be denied, it has to go through the Denial of Rights Process. Join us on this webinar as we present valuable information about patients’ rights.

In this webinar we will explore:

• Why it is important to know about Patients’ Rights
• What effect did the LPS Act have on Patients’ Rights?
• What are the Non-Deniable Patients’ Rights?
• What Rights are Subject to Denial for Good Cause?
• The Denial of Rights Process
• Who can we contact when our rights have been violated?
• What are the roles and responsibilities of the Patients’ Rights Advocate?
• Why is it important to be informed and to self-advocate?

Speakers:

Maria Garcia is a person with lived experienced. For the last 14 years she has been an Assistant Patients’ Rights Advocate, working for California Office of Patients’ Rights (COPR). COPR specializes in advocating for the rights of patients with mental health disabilities at the state hospitals.

Maria was a Certified Bilingual Teacher for 5 years. After she was diagnosed with a mental health disability, Maria strived to self-advocate for her rights, and when she joined COPR she was able to advocate for the rights of patients at DSH Metropolitan.

She recently joined the Peer Self Advocacy (PSA) Program as a Coordinator.

In 2018, she received an Advocacy Achievement Award for her dedication and hard work. Her most important reward comes from knowing that with COPR and PSA services, people with mental health disabilities have a voice in the communities and in state hospitals.

Recording of Webinar

Webinar Materials

Patients’ Rights - Understanding our Legal Rights is a Necessity Webinar Presentation Outline (pdf)
Patients’ Rights - Understanding our Legal Rights is a Necessity Webinar Presentation Outline (rtf)