Consent to treatment

Consent to treatment is in principle an acceptance by the patient to the treatment provided for him. This consent includes any form of medical treatment and no intervention can be administered unless and until this consent is provided. This principle of patient consent to treatment is one of the bases for medical ethics and is accepted universally through international human right charters. Consent is considered given only when both voluntary as well as informed consents are given. Voluntary consent or acceptance means a consent given by a patient to a treatment by his own free will without coercion by medical staff or family. Whereas informed consent entails; a patient being given all relevant medical information pertinent to his or her case and then and only then arriving on a logical conclusion whether he or she gives consent or does not give consent to treatment. The only conditions in which treatment can go on without a patients explicit consent are; in case the patient is mentally incapacitated to make an objective decision on what is best for his or her health. Consent giving and seeking should always be a continuous process between the doctors and patients. A condition, in which doctors are not obliged to seek consent from a patient before undertaking an interventional process, is when they may find during a procedure that an additional procedure is required to save life. But in this case after full recovery the entire situation and premise for the additional procedure should be explained to the patient in detail.
How is consent given, It is obtained generally from the health care professional who is directly responsible for your treatment. The ways in which consent can be given by a patient are; verbal, non verbal like nodding of the head or raising your arm in acceptance, and in written by the signing of a consent form. According to a 2005 mental capacity act al adults are considered eligible to give consent to there medical treatment for a specific condition, unless they are mentally incapacitated and there is evidence to support this. The conditions in which one can be considered to have impairment of lucid thought are in; cases of schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, dementia, and learning disabilities, sever intoxication, delirium, and long term brain damage.
Refusal of treatment has to be respected if you are voluntarily refusing treatment, and are not mentally incapacitated. This refusal has to be upheld even in conditions where it is deemed that your refusal could lead to your demise. But one should remember that a medical practitioner however is not obliged to provide an alternative course of treatment that a patient may consider appropriate.
Teenagers above the age of 16 are entitled to give consent for here own treatment. Children under the age of 16 can also consent to their treatment if considered that they are sufficiently intelligent to understand the treatment. Parents can override a teenagers consent however if he refuses treatment. An official guardian also has the same responsibilities as a parent and can override a teenager’s decision.