2018 California Code
Welfare and Institutions Code - WIC
DIVISION 4.5 - SERVICES FOR THE DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED
CHAPTER 1.3 - Persons With Developmental Disabilities Bill of Rights
Section 4503.
Each person with developmental disabilities who has been admitted or committed to a state hospital, community care facility as defined in Section 1502 of the Health and Safety Code, or a health facility as defined in Section 1250 of the Health and Safety Code shall have the following rights, a list of which shall be prominently posted in English, Spanish, and other appropriate languages, in all facilities providing those services and otherwise brought to his or her attention by any additional means as the Director of Developmental Services may designate by regulation:
(a) To wear his or her own clothes, to keep and use his or her own personal possessions including his or her toilet articles, and to keep and be allowed to spend a reasonable sum of his or her own money for canteen expenses and small purchases.
(b) To have access to individual storage space for his or her private use.
(c) To see visitors each day.
(d) To have reasonable access to telephones, both to make and receive confidential calls.
(e) To have ready access to letterwriting materials, including stamps, and to mail and receive unopened correspondence.
(f) To refuse electroconvulsive therapy.
(g) To refuse behavior modification techniques which cause pain or trauma.
(h) To refuse psychosurgery notwithstanding the provisions of Sections 5325, 5326, and 5326.3. Psychosurgery means those operations currently referred to as lobotomy, psychiatric surgery, and behavioral surgery and all other forms of brain surgery if the surgery is performed for any of the following purposes:
(1) Modification or control of thoughts, feelings, actions, or behavior rather than the treatment of a known and diagnosed physical disease of the brain.
(2) Modification of normal brain function or normal brain tissue in order to control thoughts, feelings, action, or behavior.
(3) Treatment of abnormal brain function or abnormal brain tissue in order to modify thoughts, feelings, actions, or behavior when the abnormality is not an established cause for those thoughts, feelings, actions, or behavior.
(i) To make choices in areas including, but not limited to, his or her daily living routines, choice of companions, leisure and social activities, and program planning and implementation.
(j) Other rights, as specified by regulation.
(Amended by Stats. 2003, Ch. 62, Sec. 324. Effective January 1, 2004.)
