The Office of Mental Health shall: (1) form a body corporate in deed and in law with all the powers incident to corporations; (2) cooperate with persons in charge of penal institutions in this State for the purpose of providing proper care and treatment for mental patients confined in penal institutions because of emergency; (3) inaugurate and maintain an appropriate mental health education and public relations program; (4) collect statistics bearing on mental illness, drug addiction, and alcoholism; (5) provide vocational training and medical treatment which must tend to the mental and physical betterment of patients and which is designed to lessen the increase of mental illness, drug addiction, and alcoholism; (6) encourage the directors of hospitals and their medical staffs in the investigation and study of these subjects and of mental health treatment in general; and (7) provide a statewide system for the delivery of mental health services to treat, care for, reduce, and prevent mental illness and provide mental health services for citizens of this State, whether or not in a hospital. The system must include services to prevent or postpone the commitment or recommitment of citizens to hospitals. Code Commissioner's Note At the direction of the Code Commissioner, certain references in the S.C. Code to the State Department of Mental Health, South Carolina Mental Health Commission, Department of Disabilities and Special Needs, Department of Disabilities and Special Needs Commission, Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services, and other related terms were changed to reflect the restructuring of these agencies into component offices under the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, pursuant to 2025 Act No. 3, SECTION 18.
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