Difference between revisions of "Health Care Consent in Residential Care"

# Adults can only be given health care with their consent (s. 5, HCCCFA)

# Adults are presumed to be capable of giving consent. (s. 3, HCCCFA)

The same conditions apply when a substitute decisionmaker is making the decision for the resident. Consent to health care must be voluntary. No one can pressure or force the resident or a substitute decisionmaker to decide in a particular way, or deliberately give wrong information to influence the decision. Health care providers must provide residents and substitute decision-makers with the information that a reasonable person would require in order to make a decision about proposed health care. This includes information about:

:'''Noteworthy: Consent is Specific to Issue and Time: Health care consent law is clear - the consent applies only to the specific health care to which an adult has consented. For that reason, efforts to gain written consent from residents or their substitute for certain types of events in the future, such as health care treatment (blanket consent) are not legally valid.'''

The Health Care (Consent) and Care Facility (Admission) Act specifically applies to health care providers and social workers. Health care providers covered by the Act include physicians, dentists, registered and licensed practical nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, optometrists, chiropractors and sixteen other groups of regulated health professionals. For a list see the Health Care Consent Regulation and BC Health Regulators. The residential care aides (staff who provide most of the day to day care) are not currently covered by these acts. The expectation apparently is that their supervisors will seek consent for health care.

* a series or sequence of similar treatments or care over a period of time for a particular health problem (medication regime, rehabilitation therapy, wound care, ongoing treatment for pain or migraines), as well as

The Supreme Court of Canada in Cuthbertson v. Rasouli ( an Ontario case) considered what the terms “treatment” and “health related purpose” meant in the context of (withdrawing) life support. In Rasouli the Court noted these two terms are not confined to procedures that the patient's health care providers consider as a medical benefit to the person. Rather, the focus is on why it is being done -- "treatment" is broadly defined as "anything that is done" for one of the enumerated purposes (therapeutic, preventative, palliative, diagnostic and cosmetic) or "other health-related purpose". In Rasouli, the Court also emphasized that treatment includes stopping treatment.

:(e) be involved to the greatest degree possible in all case planning and decision making.

Decisions about health care must be voluntary. No one can pressure or force the person to decide in a particular way, or deliberately give wrong information to influence decision.

People can give consent in different ways—by speaking, by writing, or through behaviour, such as nodding or making a sign that the person agrees. Although behaviour may count as consent— for example, offering an arm for an injection when requested, opening their mouth, or complying with a course of treatment—cooperating is not always the same thing as giving informed consent.

The public might assume that almost anything done in a health care setting such as a private hospital, extended care unit of a hospital or residential care facility would be “health care”. Similarly they may assume anything involving technology or medical equipment; prescribed by a physician; done by a nurse, nurse practitioner, or care worker was “health care “ or “treatment “; and anything physically intrusive in a care setting is “treatment”. However a recent British Columbia case (Bentley v. Maplewood Seniors Care Society, a case involving spoon feeding a woman in care with advance dementia) suggests that health care is more narrow than commonly assumed.

As noted, the Health Care (Consent) and Care Facility (Admission) Act sets out the requirements for health care providers to follow to ensure that a capable resident (or their substitute decisionmaker when the resident is incapable) provides consent before health care is given. However family members of residents with dementia often find a resident has been given an antipsychotic or other medication without the resident’s or substitute decisionmakers’ knowledge or informed consent. This is in spite of the fact that the family may be the legally recognized health care decisionmaker for the mentally incapable resident.  

About one half of all residents in British Columbia care facilities are prescribed psychoactive medications. The medications are often used in response to anxiety, wandering, verbal and restless behaviours.  Many commonly used psychoactive medications prescribed in care facilities have been shown to have serious side effects on people who are frail and elderly. These effects include sedation, higher risks of falls and hip fractures, Parkinson's disease-type symptoms, cardiovascular events (stroke and heart attack), and a greater risk of death.

The use of these medications is a health care intervention; as such it comes under the Health Care (Consent) and Care Facility (Admission) Act consent requirements. However the use of the medication also potentially becomes a form of chemical restraint, also bringing it under the Residential Care Regulations rules on restraints.   Depending on the circumstances, the misuse of restraints may also fall under the Adult Guardianship Act abuse definition.  

The safeguards, such as consent, for chemical or other restraints are not covered by the laws governing some facilities. As the Ombudsperson Report has noted “There are no legislated requirements in the Hospital Act that limit the use of restraints in private hospitals or extended care facilities”.

Recent best practice guidelines for dementia care from the Ministry of Health have been beneficial in raising awareness of the responsibility of health care providers to seek consent for use of the medication or other intervention before treatment. The guidelines stress:

:''“With few exceptions it is paramount that the resident’s closest family or friend (of whom one of is likely the resident’s authorized substitute decision maker) should be included in the consent seeking process."''

:“[t]he capable resident/family, or the incapable resident’s authorized substitute decision maker, should be informed of the benefits and risks of the recommended treatment, the clinical implications of refusing treatment, and be given the opportunity to ask questions of the health care provider (and have them answered) before providing a decision. Any potential adverse effects from the use of antipsychotics, such as the increased risk of stroke or death, should also be discussed when antipsychotic medications are considered medically appropriate.”  

When the person falls under the Mental Health Act is one of the few exceptions for when consent is required. This provision is one of the ways in which health care consent requirements are sometimes circumvented in care facilities. In a 2011 review of antipsychotic drugs use in British Columbia’s residential care facilities, health care providers confirmed if the authorized decision-maker refuses medication or other appropriate treatment that the health care provider has proposed to manage behaviour and feels is appropriate.

:“… then the practice is to send the resident to a hospital that is designated under the Mental Health Act. In these designated settings, the patient may be certified under the Mental Health Act, and involuntary treatment, including medication, may be provided without the consent of the patient or their authorized decision maker.”