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{{Dial-A-Law TOC|expanded = health}}
Do you have the right to refuse medical health care? Who and what allows doctors to treat you if you’re unconscious or unable to indicate what medical treatment you want? The answers to these and other questions are in a BC law called the ''[http://www.bclaws.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/96181_01 Health Care (Consent) and Care Facility (Admission) Act]''.
The Act applies to adults – people 19 and over – but not to children. And it doesn’t apply to patients who are involuntarily admitted to hospital for psychiatric treatment under the ''[http://www.bclaws.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/96288_01 Mental Health Act]''. For information on consenting to and refusing psychiatric treatment as an involuntary patient, check script [[Hospitalizing a Mentally Ill Person (Script 425)|425]], called “Hospitalizing a Mentally Ill Person”. For the law on children and consent to medical health care, check script [[Children and Consent to Medical Health Care (Script 422)|422]], called “Children and Consent to Medical Health Care”.
==A doctor or health care provider can treat you only if you consent==
The law says, “Consent to health care may be expressed orally or in writing or may be inferred from conduct”. This means that people can consent to health care in writing or verbally. And if a person can’t give written or verbal consent, a doctor or health care provider may be able to decide – based on the person’s conduct – that the person consents to health care.
==Do you have the right to refuse medical health care?==Yes. Every capable adult has the right to consent to medical health care or refuse it – for any reason, including moral and religious reasons. Adults also have the right to change their decisions about medical treatment. You can refuse life support or other medical health care, such as a blood transfusion, even if it means you will die.
To refuse treatment, you must be capable. The law presumes all adults are capable of giving, refusing, or revoking their consent, unless it’s clear they are not capable of making those decisions. If a doctor questions a person’s mental capability, the doctor can require the person to undergo a competency assessment by a medical expert.
==What if you’re incapable and cannot consent?==
Consent to medical health care in a medical emergency may not be needed to treat you if you’re an adult – it depends on the situation. If your life or health is seriously threatened, and it appears that you are not capable of making health care decisions, health care providers may not need consent to treat you. Because they are dealing with a medical emergency, they may be able do whatever is necessary to try to save your life or prevent serious physical or mental harm.
But health care providers must not provide health care to you if you become incapable and they have reasonable grounds to believe that you previously indicated that you wanted to refuse health care in a particular case – even a medical emergency. For example, you may carry a card saying you refuse to have a blood transfusion.
==More information==
To learn more about consenting to – and refusing – medical health care, call the Public Guardian and Trustee of BC at 604.775.1007 in Vancouver, 604.775.1001 in the lower mainland, and 1.877.511.4111 elsewhere in BC (the call is free). Also, check the [http://www.trustee.bc.ca/ Public Guardian and Trustee website] and the [http://www.gov.bc.ca/health Ministry of Health website].
[updated February March 2016]