2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE TWENTY-FOUR - Health and Sanitation (§§ 1 — 15010) › PART VIII - Mental Health (§§ 4001-6151 — 6184) › Chapter 201A - Mental Health Code of 2000 (§§ 6152 — 6166g) › Subchapter VIII - Mental Health Care System for Minors (§§ 6159 — 6159y) › § 6159l - Emergency placement

In case of emergency, any person over the age of eighteen (18) may seek forwarding the request for placement of a minor, after making all the necessary efforts to locate the minor’s parent with legal or physical custody or legal guardian. The minor shall be evaluated immediately by the child and adolescent psychiatrist, or in default thereof, by the general psychiatrist, after consulting with the child and adolescent psychiatrist, together with the inter- or multidisciplinary team of the institutional provider, in order to establish the diagnosis and to determine the level of care that corresponds to the severity of symptoms and signs at the time.
Live-in treatments and transitional services for minors shall not be deemed to be emergency placements. Minors referred to receive these services shall meet the specific criteria set for such services, as defined in this chapter.
The director of the institutional provider shall continue to make efforts to locate the parent with legal or physical custody or the legal guardian. If the person is located and gives written consent for placement, the minor shall continue in the indicated and recommended level of care. If the parent with legal or physical custody or the legal guardian cannot be located within the next twenty-four (24) hours, or if after being located, he/she refuses to give consent for the minor’s placement, or requests the minor’s discharge, a petition shall be filed with the court together with a report stating the minor’s condition and the recommendations from the child and adolescent psychiatrist, in consultation with the inter- or multidisciplinary team. The court shall determine whether continuing the care or discharging the minor is in order, for which it shall schedule a hearing to be held within seven (7) calendar days. The court shall notify the minor, his/her attorney or the person representing him/her, and the director of the institution or his/her representative, and state the place, date, and time of the hearing. Hospitalization of the minor shall continue until the court provides otherwise.
The court may order the discharge of the minor if the assessment reports show that he/she may benefit from mental healthcare services in a therapeutically indicated level of care that accords him/her greater autonomy.
If necessary, the court shall order the Department of the Family to give the minor proper placement.
The lack of interest or the remissness or the inability of the parent with legal or physical custody, the legal guardian, or the person with physical custody or the duty to provide care or shelter, shall not constitute grounds for having a minor institutionalized or for continuing the placement of a minor in a mental healthcare institution. If this should be the case, and if failing to meet the clinical requirements for placement, the court shall order the Department of the Family to assume legal custody and to give the minor proper placement.
Likewise, in the event that the minor has been placed and such minor is able to benefit from a lesser-intensity, greater-autonomy level of treatment on an ongoing basis, and the remissness or the lack of interest or the inability of the parent with legal or physical custody, the legal guardian, or the person with physical custody or the duty to provide care or shelter disallows the coordination of the discharge, the director of the institutional provider of mental healthcare services shall file a petition with the court to secure shelter and care for such minor. The court shall order the Department of the Family to give the minor proper placement and to collaborate with the institutional provider of mental healthcare services as pertains to the discharge of the minor, and subsequently, the Department of the Family shall ascertain that the minor is able to remain in an ongoing-care setting that allows him/her to continue his/her treatment, recovery, and/or rehabilitation.
In the event that the court has authorized the continuation of placement, the court shall carry on with the proceedings for involuntary placement as provided by this chapter.
History —Oct. 2, 2000, No. 408, § 8.13; Aug. 6, 2008, No. 183, § 46.