2016 South Carolina Code of Laws
Title 44 - Health
CHAPTER 23 - PROVISIONS APPLICABLE TO BOTH MENTALLY ILL PERSONS AND PERSONS OF INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES
Section 44-23-10. Definitions.

When used in this chapter, Chapter 9, Chapter 11, Chapter 13, Articles 3, 5, 7, and 9 of Chapter 17, Chapter 24, Chapter 27, Chapter 48, and Chapter 52, unless the context clearly indicates a different meaning:

(1) "Attending physician" means the staff physician charged with primary responsibility for the treatment of a patient.

(2) "Conservator" means a person who legally has the care and management of the estate of one who is incapable of managing his own estate, whether or not he has been declared legally incompetent.

(3) "Department" means the South Carolina Department of Mental Health.

(4) "Designated examiner" means a physician licensed by the Board of Medical Examiners of this State or a person registered by the department as specially qualified, under standards established by the department, in the diagnosis of mental or related illnesses.

(5) "Director" means the Director of the South Carolina Department of Mental Health.

(6) "Discharge" means an absolute release or dismissal from an institution or a hospital.

(7) "Gravely disabled" means a person who, due to mental illness, lacks sufficient insight or capacity to make responsible decisions with respect to his treatment and because of this condition is likely to cause harm to himself through neglect, inability to care for himself, personal injury, or otherwise.

(8) "Guardian" or "legal guardian" means a person who legally has the care and management of the person of one who is not sui juris.

(9) "Hospital" means a public or private hospital.

(10) "Interested person" means a parent, guardian, spouse, adult next of kin, or nearest friend.

(11) "Leave of absence" means a qualified release from an institution or a hospital.

(12) "Licensed physician" means an individual licensed under the laws of this State to practice medicine or a medical officer of the government of the United States while in this State in the performance of official duties.

(13) "Likelihood of serious harm" means because of mental illness there is:

(a) a substantial risk of physical harm to the person himself as manifested by evidence of threats of, or attempts at, suicide or serious bodily harm;

(b) a substantial risk of physical harm to other persons as manifested by evidence of homicidal or other violent behavior and serious harm to them; or

(c) a very substantial risk of physical impairment or injury to the person himself as manifested by evidence that the person is gravely disabled and that reasonable provision for the person's protection is not available in the community.

(14) "Mental health clinic" means an institution, or part of an institution, maintained by the department for the treatment and care on an outpatient basis.

(15) "Nearest friend" means any responsible person who, in the absence of a parent, guardian, or spouse, undertakes to act for and on behalf of another individual who is incapable of acting for himself for that individual's benefit, whether or not the individual for whose benefit he acts is under legal disability.

(16) "Nonresident licensed physician" means an individual licensed under the laws of another state to practice medicine or a medical officer of the government of the United States while performing official duties in that state.

(17) "Observation" means diagnostic evaluation, medical, psychiatric and psychological examination, and care of a person for the purpose of determining his mental condition.

(18) "Officer of the peace" means any state, county, or city police officer, officer of the State Highway Patrol, sheriff, or deputy sheriff.

(19) "Parent" means natural parent, adoptive parent, stepparent, or person with legal custody.

(20) "Patient" means a person who seeks hospitalization or treatment under the provisions of this chapter, Chapter 9, Chapter 11, Chapter 13, Article 1 of Chapter 15, Chapter 17, Chapter 27, Chapter 48, and Chapter 52 or any person for whom such hospitalization or treatment is sought.

(21) "Person with a mental illness" means a person with a mental disease to such an extent that, for the person's own welfare or the welfare of others or of the community, the person requires care, treatment, or hospitalization.

(22) "Person with intellectual disability" means a person, other than a person with a mental illness primarily in need of mental health services, whose inadequately developed or impaired intelligence and adaptive level of behavior require for the person's benefit, or that of the public, special training, education, supervision, treatment, care, or control in the person's home or community or in a service facility or program under the control and management of the Department of Disabilities and Special Needs.

(23) "State hospital" means a hospital, or part of a hospital, equipped to provide inpatient care and treatment and maintained by the department.

(24) "State mental health facility" or "facility" means any hospital, clinic, or other institution maintained by the department.

(25) "State of citizenship" means the last state in which a person resided for one or more consecutive years, exclusive of time spent in public or private hospitals and penal institutions or on parole or unauthorized absence from such hospitals and institutions and of time spent in service in any of the Armed Forces of the United States; the residence of a person must be determined by the actual physical presence, not by the expressed intent of the person.

(26) "Treatment" means the broad range of emergency, outpatient, intermediate, and inpatient services and care that may be extended to a patient, including diagnostic evaluation and medical, psychiatric, psychological, and social service care and vocational rehabilitation and counseling.

HISTORY: 1962 Code Section 32-911; 1952 (47) 2042; 1954 (48) 1732; 1958 (50) 1634; 1960 (51) 1701, 1944; 1961 (52) 110, 550; 1965 (54) 570; 1966 (54) 2259; 1969 (56) 653; 1974 (58) 2642; 1977 Act No. 99 Section 1; 1986 Act No. 539, Section 3(1)(G); 1993 Act No. 181, Section 1083; 2008 Act No. 266, Section 7, eff June 4, 2008; 2011 Act No. 47, Section 4, eff June 7, 2011; 2016 Act No. 225 (H.3952), Section 1, eff June 3, 2016.

Editor's Note

2011 Act No. 47, Section 13, provides as follows:

"SECTION 13. In Sections 1 through 6 of this act, the terms 'intellectual disability' and 'person with intellectual disability' have replaced and have the same meanings as the former terms 'mental retardation' and 'mentally retarded'."

Effect of Amendment

The 2008 amendment rewrote this section.

The 2011 amendment substituted "intellectual disability" for "mental retardation" in subsection (21).

2016 Act No. 225, Section 1, in (5), substituted "Director" for "director", inserted (7), renumbered former (7) through (25) as (8) through (26), and in (13)(c), substituted "person is gravely disabled" for "person's judgment is so affected that the person is unable to protect himself or herself in the community".