Health is a significant part of human life. Each country has its laws which govern the health sector and all the people who are involved. During the process of treatment, there are legal issues which emerge between the patient and the health practitioner. In Australia, legal problems in health matters are solved using the health laws which are enacted by the law courts. The person associated with the legal issue is presented before a judge and tried using the state and territory laws. There are several ethicolegal issues which occur within the health institutions. Analyzing a situation where a person is not competent to provide consent to treatment will help in understanding some of the ethicolegal principles and concepts in health law.
According to health law, the term consent is described as the approval of the patient to undertake a particular form of treatment which they feel is best for them. In this case, the doctor cannot administer the treatment if the patient has not given permission since it will be a legal issue. Consent comes after the patient has made up a decision of accepting whether to be treated or not. The process of decision-making involves understanding of the facts of the information, retaining the information up to the time when necessary to make the decision, weigh the information, and finally, communicate the decision to the medical practitioner. This ability to make decision is legally referred to as capacity. When the patient loses capacity, their consent will probably be in doubt since they are assumed to make unwise decisions. Therefore, capacity and consent are closely related thus; when capacity is impaired, the patient will not be competent to give consent.
The ethicolegal principles require doctors to perform a capacity test before concluding that the patient’s capacity is impaired. However, in Australia, capacity is defined according to the specific area that the concept is being used. Mr. Le Grand, a personal injury lawyer in Australia, states there are different types of capacity and that they should be treated singularly. Lawyers are often involved in the issues of assuring the capacity of their clients before proceeding with instructions in serious cases such as writing a will. The medical officer carrying out the test should be careful because the results are used in courts and other important areas.
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