Mental Health and Substance Abuse

Mental Health and Substance Abuse; Providing exceptions to a provision prohibiting the court from appointing the public defender to represent certain persons who are not indigent; providing that the opinion of a qualified professional, rather than that of a psychiatrist or psychiatric nurse practicing within the framework of an established protocol with a psychiatrist, may be the basis for the court to grant a petition for the appointment of a guardian advocate; authorizing a qualified professional, rather than a physician or the patient’s psychiatric nurse, to restrict a patient’s access to his or her clinical records if the qualified professional believes such access to the records is harmful to the patient; requiring the qualified professional who assessed the patient, rather than the treating physician or psychiatric nurse practicing within the framework of an established protocol with a psychiatrist, to document in the patient’s clinical record that the patient is able to give express and informed consent for admission, etc.