Rights of Patients Patients\' Rights

Rights of Patients

Patients' Rights in South Australia

Increasingly in developed nations, medical patient rights are being identified as something separate and distinct from the rights accorded under more general civil law. Much civil law is predicated on the idea that the citizen will have a capacity to represent himself or herself in a dispute. Healthcare patients are, by contrast, at considerable mercy to a system of nurses, doctors, administrators, facilities and agencies. This necessitates a high level of trust that these parties will conduct themselves appropriately and in the best interests of the patient. In light of this necessity, governments have seen it fit in recent years to explicitly establish rights specific to patients. In contexts such as South Australia, this has helped to clarify the responsibilities and expectations to which healthcare professionals must be held and simultaneously informs the patient of the protections which exist as he or she enters and navigates the healthcare system.

Among the common and legal rights of the patient, the code specific to South Australia centers on issues of choice, information, treatment and privacy. Though the code of rights denotes that a certain pragmatism is required within the system in order for rational application to occur, the most important and steadfast of conditions relates to the matter of patient consent. According to the Legal Services Commission of South Australia (LSCSA) (2010), every patient has "the right to decide whether or not to undergo medical treatment, after receiving a reasonable explanation of what the treatment involves and the risks associated with the treatment." (p. 1)

This right is explicated in further detail by such legislation as the 1995 Consent to Medical Treatment and Palliative Care Act. This would be designed to ensure that the patient remains the primary decision-maker with respect to his or her own treatment and health options. This is intended to protect against the appeal of medical professionals to certain procedures or approaches out of personal prejudice, economic justification or convenience. The enlistment of the patient as part of the core decision-making team is intended to ensure that the medical practitioner provides the patient with comprehensive information about the treated conditions, including knowledge of all possible treatment avenues and encouragement to choose amongst these treatment options.

In an important regard, the legal conditions created by such legislation as the Consent Act would also be designed to protect physicians and other healthcare professionals where conditions have dictated this necessary. For instance, the Act notes that "a medical practitioner may lawfully administer medical treatment to a person (the patient) if -- (a)the patient is capable of consenting; and (b) the medical practitioner who administers the treatment is of the opinion that the treatment is necessary to meet an imminent risk to life or health and that opinion is supported by the written opinion of another medical practitioner who has personally examined the patient; and (c) the patient (if of or over 16 years of age) has not, to the best of the medical practitioner's knowledge, refused to consent to the treatment. " (South Australia, p. 8)

This demonstrates the balance which is necessary in protecting the rights of the patient and simultaneously ensuring that physicians have the freedom necessary to perform to the best of their abilities. In a respect, this underscores the nature of the strategies used for the protection of patients' rights. The intention is primarily to provide a basic forum for the constructive interaction of patient and physician with legal recourse serving as a failsafe. So is this implied by the LSCSA, which indicates that the demands of existing Patients' Rights standards are designed to make the physician actively accountable to the patient's interests. Therefore, the LSCSA indicates a strategy for preserving the right to consent, reporting that "although the first step usually should be to speak to the doctor or other health care provider who has treated the patient, if any doubts remain, a patient should not be reluctant to seek legal advice - it is a right to receive a reasonable explanation of medical treatment." (p. 1)

From the position of nursing professionals, who will often spend the greatest amount of time interacting on a personal level with individual patients, these rights need to form the basis for advocacy roles. The nurse must function as an advocate to the interests of patients, particularly as they undergo treatment and place their lives in the hands of medical professionals. Here, all patients are afforded the right to "be treated with care, consideration and dignity." (LSCSA, 1)