BILL NUMBER: S8903
SPONSOR: FAHY
 
TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the mental hygiene law, in relation to former patients
interred at present and former state mental health hospital cemeteries
 
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:
To identify burial locations and provide interested parties with needed
information to locate graves, mark headstones, or otherwise memorialize
former patients and Veterans interred at present and former State Mental
Health Hospital cemeteries. This will help return dignity to these
people who lived life in very difficult circumstances and reduce the
stigma of mental illness while also recognizing Veterans for their
service to this country.
 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Section 1 amends § 33. 26 of the mental hygiene law to require that all
records of former patients buried at state mental health hospital ceme-
teries shall be retained permanently.
Section 2 amends § 33.16 (a) lthe mental hygiene law is amended by spec-
ifying that burial records are not part of a clinical record.
Section 3 sets the enacting date
 
JUSTIFICATION:
For over 125 years, deceased former patients of New York State Mental
Health Hospitals have been buried in unmarked or numbered graves in
cemeteries associated with the hospitals. Present laws treat burial
records as part of a clinical record and prevent interested persons from
identifying and locating family members in order to memorialize them.
Keeping their burial records sealed perpetuates an era of silence and
shame. Many of these deceased are Veterans who suffered because of their
service to our country.
Modern thinking and common-sense demand that in order to reduce the
stigma of mental illness and restore dignity to those who suffered, we
should allow these deceased former patients to be identified, provide
the ability of interested parties to memorialize them, and return their
name to them as other states have done. Much time has passed and many of
the deceased do not have living immediate family members, but there are
many individuals and groups who feel compelled to right this wrong and
acknowledge these individuals as people with names, identities, and
personal histories, rather than as anonymous numbers in forgotten grave-
yards.
 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
New bill.
 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS FOR STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS:
None.
 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect on the one hundred twentieth day after it
shall have become a law

Statutes affected:
S8903: 33.16 mental hygiene law