Free Nursing Dissertations - Treatment Without Consent. undergraduate Degree Level Essay 2,500 Words
Treatment without consent.
Undergraduate Degree Level Essay
2,500 words
Introduction.
Consent is the dividing line between treatment and assault. (Veitch RM 2002). Consent is an enormously complex legal issue with many different sequelae and considerations. It is vital to the everyday practice of healthcare. In this essaywe shall examine a number of the issues relating to consent, both in the context of a specific scenario and on the wider front.
Scenario
A patient, who we shall refer to as Mrs.J., had a Caesarean Section. In the course of which she was found to have a medical condition which would have made it dangerous for her to have another pregnancy. The surgeon took the decision to sterilise her for her own safety and performed tubal ligation while the abdomen was open. Mrs.J. had consented in writing, to undergo the operation itself and any emergency treatment that was considered necessary during the course of the operation, she had not specifically consented to being sterilised, but neither had she specifically withheld her consent.
This scenario, although specific, can be used to exemplify most of the principles underlying consent. It can also be used to show the reasoning behind the procedures commonly employed to obtain consent and their raison d’ętre. It is often considered that the consent form is signed to protect the healthcare professional from litigation, but it must not be forgotten that it is also there to protect the patient as well.
Main Body.
Ethical discussion.
In this essay we shall be guided by the general principles set out by the Good Practice in Consent initiative group, which is a group set up as a result of the definitive pledge in the NHS Plan (DOH 2000) that proper consent must be sought from all NHS patients and research subjects. This group was comprised of various stakeholders such as patient representatives, carers, clinicians, academics and NHS managers. And their guidance formed the current definitive guide on matter relating to consent.
It follows from this statement, that we must decide what proper consent actually is. When considering the adult patient, the consideration of what constitutes proper consent also hinges on whether the adult is considered competent to give their consent. From a legal and ethical point of view, adults are always considered to be competent unless proved otherwise. (Kuhse & Singer 2001). If there is a significant doubt about competence, then the testing factor should be can this patient understand and weigh up the information needed to make this decision?
We should note that just because the patient may make an unexpected or seemingly irrational decision, we should not immediately jump to the conclusion that they are not competent.
