1. The Moral Issue of Patient’s Rights
MEVELLE L. ASUNCION

2.  Woman became pregnant by accident rather than by
design justifies her decision t0 abort the fetus by
appealing to her right to privacy and self
determination. The fetus, however, also has the right
to life. How much weight do we assign to these
conflicting rights? Which rights takes precedence?
 Discuss autonomy, utility, situationism, and
naturalism principles

3.  Patient’s rights
 The moral and inviolable power vested in him as
a person to do, hold or demand something on his
own.
 Types of Patient’s Rights
1. Right to informed consent
2. Right to informed decision
3. Right to informed choice

4. Four major elements of informed consent
 Competence
 One has made adecision
 One has the capacity to justify one’s choice
 One does not justify one’s choice but does so in reasonable
manner
 Disclosure
 Comprehension
 Voluntariness

5. Right to refuse treatment
 Right to die
 Freedom of choice

6. Limitations of Patient’s rights
 2 methods of obtaining informed consent
 Written consent
 Verbal consent
 In emergency cases the types of patient need not
require informed consent
 Comatose obtunded patient
 Blind or illiterate patients
 Underaged patients
 Language barriers

7. Rights of Patients
1. Right to considerate and respectful care
2. The patient has the right to obtain from his physician
complete current information concerning his diagnosis,
treatment, and prognosis in terms that the patient can
be reasonably expected to understand
3. The patient has the right to receive from his physician
information necessary to give informed consent prior
to the start of any procedure and/or treatment
4. The patient has the right to refuse treatment to the
extent permitted by law and to be informed of the
medical consequences of his action
5. Right ot every consideration of his privacy concerning
his medical care program

8. 6. The patient has the right ot expect all communications
and records to his care should be treated as confidential
7. The patient has the right ot expect that, within its
capacity, the hospital must provide a reasonable
response to his her request for services
8. Right to obtain info regarding any relationship of his
hospital to tother health care and educational
institutions insofar as his care is concerned
9. The patient has the right to be advised if the hospital
proposes to engage in or perform human
experimentation affecting his/her care of treatment.
Right to refuse to participate in such research projects

9. 10. The patient has the right to expect reasonable
11. The patient has the right to examine and receive an
explanation of the hospital bill, regardless of source
of payment
12. Patient has the right to know the hospital rules and
regulations apply to his her conduct as a patient.

10. CASE HISTORY
 A 26 years old male patient with a HIV (+) test refuses to believe his
diagnosis and does not accept to undertake any complementary
studies (e.g. CD4+ T cell count, levels of HIV RNA in serum plasma,
etc.) and treatment. Five years later, the patient had to be admitted
to the Intensive Care Unit for the treatment of respiratory failure
secondary to Pneumocystis Carini pneumonia. He had CD4+ T cell
count <50, a severe nutritional compromise and skin lesions
compatible with Kaposi’s sarcoma. The patient refused
antiretroviral therapy. Nevertheless, his mother insistently
requested the attending physician to begin the therapy even against
the patient’s wishes. The physician refused to do so. One week later,
because of his family’s persistence, the patient changed his mind
and accepted treatment. The opportunistic pathologies evolved
favorably, so that the patient could be discharged from the hospital
one month later. He now accepts regular control of the
antiretroviral therapy and is progressively improving his general
and nutritional conditions.