A Notice · filed by a citizen who has been on the inside

Fix the Michigan Mental Health Code

TL;DRA citizen's notice in the curator's voice: Michigan's Mental Health Code (Act 258 of 1974) already grants private telephone/mail communication (MCL 330.1726), but it predates the smartphone — so wards point technology at patients (tablets, 15-minute checks) and hand patients nothing.

Technology can't exist only for the watchers. The same screen that logs me every fifteen minutes could let me call my advocate and read my own chart — it's simply never turned to face the human.

I am putting a plain wrong on the record and asking that Michigan's Mental Health Code be revised to right it. I am not a court. I am a citizen who has been on the inside, asking that the law be made to mean, in practice, what it already says on paper.

The right already exists
The 1974 law is on the patient's side.

Michigan's Mental Health Code — Act 258 of 1974 — in its Rights of Recipients chapter, already says a recipient is entitled to "unimpeded, private, and uncensored communication with others by mail and telephone" (MCL 330.1726). On paper, the law already protects the call.

The law is fifty years old
Written before the smartphone, the tablet, the digital chart.

Here is what happens now, on the inside, that the 1974 words never imagined: the ward runs on technology pointed at the patient. Tablets at the station. A digital check logged on you every fifteen minutes. A chart kept about you, on a screen, that you are not allowed to see. The institution has every modern tool — and the patient is handed nothing. Not a phone. Not a look at their own record. Not the private line the old law already promised, made real in the way people actually communicate now.

What points at the patient must also serve the patient.

That is the wrong: technology in the ward exists for the watchers and not for the watched. It surveils, it bills, it monitors — all aimed at the recipient. It does not serve the recipient. Technology can't exist only for the abusers of it.

The ask — bring the Code into the century it's enforced in
  1. Make the communication right digital-age real, and enforced. The call the 1974 law already guarantees must be a working private line to a lawyer and a rights advocate that no staff decision can quietly cut off. Solve the real concern honestly — the worry is photographs of other patients, so ban cameras and enforce it, or provide a no-camera device — then give the call back.
  2. The recipient's record belongs to the recipient, in real time. A patient must be able to see their own chart, digitally, while they are in the ward — not a scribbled page handed over on the way out. The record is the arbiter; a person has to be able to read the record deciding their life.
  3. A symmetry rule. If a ward uses digital tools to monitor a recipient, the recipient must be given digital tools to communicate and to see their own record. The technology may not run one direction only.
  4. Consider a federal floor. What Michigan fixes here, every state needs. These protections shouldn't depend on the zip code of the ward you wake up in.

The house's read
A right on paper that practice throttles protects no one.

House opinion · the curator's, and labeled

Solve for one. A code that grants a right on paper and then lets the practice throttle it hasn't protected anyone — it has handed the institution a rule it can quietly ignore. A phone is a witness; without it, "care" behind a locked door, with a silenced patient and a bill, is hard to tell from confinement. I have seen it from the inside. The tools were in the room the whole time. They were just never turned to face me.

Make the law mean, in practice, what it already says on paper.

The same gap exists one door over, in employment: the ADA already has teeth and almost nobody knows Congress sharpened them in 2008 — a right nobody was told about is a right that never gets used.

— Sean William McKendry · Lansing · the Lion in the Room

Where the house stands (0g — verified vs. opinion). Verified: Michigan's Mental Health Code is Act 258 of 1974 (MCL 330.1001 et seq.); its Chapter 7 covers Rights of Recipients of Mental Health Services (MCL 330.1700–330.1758); MCL 330.1726 addresses communication by mail and telephone and provides for "unimpeded, private, and uncensored communication." (Confirm the exact current text against the official source — statutes get amended.) Opinion / advocacy (the whole ask): that the Code should be revised for the digital age; the symmetry rule; the real-time-record right; the "technology for the watchers, not the watched" framing; the federal-floor idea — these are the curator's position and lived testimony, argued in the open, not findings of fact about any specific facility and not legal advice. Status: an expressive Notice — not a legal filing with standing. No statutory text is drafted here; counsel writes any real bill. No facility is named, per the no-harm floor. Held to the one rule: no lying.

Send it yourself

An argument that stays on a page is a pamphlet. Below is the letter, written to be sent by anyone in Michigan, not only by the person who wrote it. Copy it, put your own name at the bottom, and send it to your own representative and senator; a legislator counts letters from the district and cannot count a website.

Find yours in twenty seconds — use your street address rather than your ZIP, because Michigan ZIP codes split across districts: Michigan House · Michigan Senate. The committee that would hear a bill on this is Senate Health Policy; its membership and clerk are listed at the committee’s own page, which is the only roster worth trusting, since committees change between sessions.

The letter — yours to send

Subject: Michigan’s Mental Health Code promises a private call it can no longer deliver

Senator [name],

I’m writing about one line in the Mental Health Code, Act 258 of 1974.

MCL 330.1726 already guarantees a recipient “unimpeded, private, and uncensored communication with others by mail and telephone.” That right is now difficult to exercise in practice, because the law was written before the device nearly everyone communicates with existed.

Here is what a psychiatric unit looks like today. The staff have tablets. A digital check is logged on the patient every fifteen minutes. A chart is kept about the patient, on a screen, that the patient is not permitted to read. Every piece of technology on the unit is pointed at the patient, and the patient is handed nothing: not a phone, not a look at their own record.

My ask is one thing. Amend that section so the communication right includes the means to exercise it, and so a facility that deploys monitoring technology on a unit must also provide the patient a way to reach the outside and to see their own file.

What points at the patient should also serve the patient.

The full argument, with the statute cited, is public and dated here: onlyhumanscanscore.com/michigan-mental-health-code.html

I’m a Michigan resident and I’m glad to answer questions or put this in writing for the record.

[your name]
[your city], Michigan
[your phone or email]

Three things before you send. Replace every bracket; an unfilled bracket is the fastest way into a delete folder. If the person you’re writing to actually represents you, add the sentence “I’m your constituent” — and only where it is true, because it is the one credential in that building that cannot be acquired any other way. And if you are writing to the committee chair, ask a question they can answer: you chair this committee, so I’m asking directly — is this worth a hearing?

If you have been a patient, say so, and say only that. Lived experience is standing and it belongs in the letter. A pending complaint about a specific facility does not; keep that in its own envelope, addressed to the people whose job it is. Mixing the two lets someone file the whole letter as a grievance and stop reading. This page names no facility, and the letter shouldn’t either.

Sources

Michigan Mental Health Code — Chapter 7, Rights of Recipients (official PDF) · MCL 330.1726 (communication by mail and telephone)
Related rooms: A Phone Is a Witness · The ADA Needs Teeth · Dignity