House Bill 403 creates the “No Patient Left Alone Act” and establishes a statutory right for patients in Mississippi health care facilities to have a designated visitor physically present during care. For minors, the visitor may be a parent, guardian, or person standing in loco parentis. For adults, the visitor may be a spouse, family member, or caregiver. The bill is aimed at ensuring that patients are not left without support during treatment, while still allowing facilities to manage visitation in limited circumstances.
The bill also gives health care facilities authority to adopt visitation policies that restrict access when visitors are medically inappropriate, interfere with patient care or others’ rights, or engage in disruptive, threatening, violent, or noncompliant conduct. Facilities may require personal protective equipment and reasonable safety protocols, but must provide any required PPE themselves. The bill expressly excludes certain areas and situations, such as operating rooms, isolation settings, behavioral health settings, and emergency care in critical situations, and it limits access to the patient’s care area and common areas.
HB403 further prohibits health care facilities, the Department of Health, and other governmental entities from terminating, suspending, or waiving these visitation rights, even during a gubernatorially declared emergency. It also bars facilities from requiring patients to waive the rights created by the act. The Department of Health must publish informational materials on the rights and make them available to facilities for website posting, and it is authorized to impose escalating civil fines for violations, with collected fines deposited into the State General Fund.
The bill’s impact on state law is to create a new statewide visitation right that constrains facility discretion and limits the ability of state agencies to enforce visitor restrictions except where federal law requires it. It also creates a compliance and penalty framework for health care facilities, while preserving exceptions where compliance would conflict with state or federal regulations or directives. In practical terms, the bill affects hospitals and other health care facilities, along with patients, visitors, and the Department of Health.
The general sentiment reflected in the available vote was strongly supportive: the House passed the bill 113-0. No committee transcript is available, so there is no recorded floor or committee debate in the provided materials. The main points of potential contention inherent in the bill are the balance between patient visitation rights and facility safety/infection-control authority, the limits on government action during emergencies, and the bill’s restrictions on following CDC or other federal visitor-restriction guidance unless required by law.
HB403 would add a new statutory visitation right for minor and adult patients in Mississippi health care facilities, limit the ability of facilities and state agencies to suspend those rights, and authorize the Department of Health to publish guidance and levy civil fines for violations. It would affect the operation of hospitals and other covered facilities, patient visitation policies, emergency-response restrictions, and the scope of state enforcement authority, while preserving exceptions for conflicting state or federal requirements.
The available voting history shows unanimous House approval, indicating broad support for the bill in that chamber. Because no committee transcript is provided, there is no direct record of debate, but the bill’s structure suggests general support for patient and family access balanced by some concern for safety, infection control, and facility discretion. The absence of any recorded opposition in the House vote suggests the measure was not politically contentious at that stage.
The main areas of tension are between patient visitation rights and health care facility control over safety and clinical judgment. Facilities retain authority to restrict visitors for disruptive behavior, medical contraindications, or noncompliance, but the bill also limits their ability to rely on emergency declarations or general public-health guidance to bar visitation. Another possible point of contention is the bill’s prohibition on requiring patients to waive these rights and its restriction on state action against facilities for visitor-related harms, which may be viewed as reducing institutional flexibility and liability management.