In the midst of Mental Health Awareness Month nationally, state Rep. Jamie Thompson today testified on bills she has sponsored that make critical reforms and provide oversight and transparency to Michigan’s mental health system to ensure patients are getting effective, needed care.

House Bill 4218 adds three members to the recipient rights advisory committee, which is part of Michigan’s statewide system that processes patient complaints in the mental health realm. The new members will come from mental health advocacy groups – making targeted changes to the panel to ensure patient rights are protected.

“The committee in its current form is ineffective in investigating patient complaints, and there is a low success rate for patients and their families as a result,” said Thompson, of Brownstown. “There are massive conflict of interest issues with how complaints are received as the care providers essentially are investigating themselves to see if rules were followed and care was properly administered. This means instances involving our state’s most vulnerable, including our children, often fall through the cracks. Adding advocacy groups to this panel will provide a desperately needed layer of accountability, because in many cases these groups are receiving complaints and calls from impacted individuals also. It’s an outside-looking-in approach that we need.”

HB 4219 requires patient rights for voluntary mental health treatment to be communicated both orally and in writing. Patient advocacy organizations have reported that voluntary patients are often unaware of their rights and are not informed of them, including the right to end treatment. Thompson noted that state-run psychiatric hospitals have frequently fallen short in this area and with patient safety as a whole – making these safeguards crucial.

“We do not want barriers to people seeking this very important care,” said Simon Zagata, who is the Director of Community and Institutional Rights for Disability Rights Michigan. “Knowing your rights, no matter the situation, is essential. Put yourself in the shoes of someone seeking in-patient hospitalization. This is a mental health crisis. This might be one of the hardest points of that person’s life. Upon getting to the hospital, they may get medication that is meant to sedate, calm them down, causes them extreme fatigue or makes them have trouble concentrating, and it’s in that scenario where these voluntary patients are given the verbal notice of their rights.

“It’s hard to remember verbal information. That’s why we’ve submitted written testimony and we’re speaking (on these bills). It is a barrier to have confusion about your rights, to think that you might be held without knowing why, and to not know what you can do or what the laws are around it – and so that’s why we support a written notice of rights.”

“As a nurse, I find it very problematic that many patients don’t know their rights,” Thompson said. “These bills are a very important first step in addressing some of the shortcomings we have seen within our state-run facilities and Michigan’s mental health care system.”

In the face of systemic problems and detailed accounts from mistreated individuals and their families, Thompson has pushed for the state Auditor General to investigate the Office of Recipient Rights to ensure the constitutional and statutory rights of recipients of public mental health services are protected, and that patients and families know these rights. The bills work in tandem with these continued calls, and the Auditor General is expected to release its performance audit findings later this year.

“One of our primary missions has been to make sure that people who receive mental health services get quality mental health services and support,” said Mental Health Association of Michigan President and CEO Marianne Huff when testifying in support of Thompson’s plans. “Even though it’s 2025, we still have instances in both public and private psychiatric hospitals where people are not always treated really well.”

HBs 4218-19 remain under consideration in the House Health Policy Committee.