1401 E. Eighth Street, Weslaco, TX
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Patient Information
Patient Rights and Responsibilities
Your care and comfort are important to us. While a patient at Knapp Medical Center, whether an adult, newborn, child, or adolescent, your rights and responsibilities include the following:
Your Responsibilities as a Patient These are your responsibilities as a patient to aid in your healing and recovery.
Communicate Your Health Care Choices Individuals usually make decisions regarding their health care treatment after their doctor recommends a course of treatment and provides information about the treatment. These decisions may become more difficult, however, if a patient becomes unable to tell their doctors and loved ones what kind of health care treatment they want. Through documents, known as advance directives, individuals can express their treatment preferences before they actually need such care, ensuring that their wishes will be carried out and that their families and others will not be faced with making these difficult decisions. This information will give you some basic facts about your rights as a patient. Additional information may be obtained from your doctor or nurse. Informed Consent: You have the right to decide what may be done to your body during the course of medical treatment. Your doctor will discuss with you the nature of your condition, the proposed treatment and any alternate procedures that are available. Your doctor also will provide you with information about the risks associated with certain medical procedures. This information will help you make an informed decision about the kind of treatment you want to receive. Surrogate Decision-Maker: If you become unable to make your own health care decisions and do not have a legal guardian or someone designated under a Medical Power of Attorney, then certain family members and others can make medical treatment decisions on your behalf. Below is some general information on the four types of advance directives recognized under Texas law. Advance directives can be changed or cancelled at any time by you. A Directive to Physicians, also known as a "living will," allows you to tell your doctor not to use artificial methods to prolong the process of dying if you are terminally ill. A Directive does not become effective until you have been diagnosed with a terminal or irreversible condition. If you sign a Directive, talk it over with your doctor and ask that it be made part of your medical record. If for some reason you become unable to sign a written Directive, you can issue a Directive verbally or by other means of non-written communication, in the presence of your doctor. If you have not issued a Directive and become unable to communicate after being diagnosed with a terminal or irreversible condition, your attending doctor and legal guardian, or certain family members in the absence of a legal guardian, can make decisions concerning withdrawing, withholding or providing life-sustaining treatment. Your attending doctor and another doctor not involved in your care also can make decisions to withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment if you do not have a guardian and certain family members are not available. Another type of advance directive is a Medical Power of Attorney, which allows you to designate someone you trust - an agent - to make health care decisions on your behalf should you become unable to make these decisions yourself. You cannot choose as your agent your health care provider, including a doctor, hospital or nursing home; an employee of your health care provider, unless he is your relative; your residential care provider, such as a nursing home or hospice; or an employee of your residential care provider, unless he is related to you. The person you designate has authority to make health care decisions on your behalf only when your attending doctor certifies that you lack the capacity to make your own health care decisions. Your agent cannot make a health care decision if you object, regardless of whether you have the capacity to make the health care decision yourself, or whether a Medical Power of Attorney is in effect. Your agent must make health care decisions after consulting with your attending doctor, and according to the agent's knowledge of your wishes, including your religious and moral beliefs. If your wishes are unknown, your agent must make a decision based on what he believes is in your best interest. An Out-of-Hospital Do-Not-Resuscitate Order allows you to refuse certain life-sustaining treatments in any setting outside of a hospital. This advance directive must be issued in conjunction with your attending doctor. Declaration for Mental Health Treatment deals with mental health treatment issues only. A Declaration for Mental Health Treatment allows you to tell health care providers your choices for mental health treatment, in the event that you become incapacitated. Legal Aspects of an Advance Directive An advance directive does not need to be notarized. Neither this hospital nor your doctor may require you to execute an advance directive as a condition for admittance or receiving treatment in this or any other hospital. The fact that you have executed an advance directive will not affect any insurance policies that you may have. Don't Wait For a Medical Crisis Knapp Medical Center encourages its patients to issue advance directives before they face serious illness. Communicate your future medical care choices now through advance directives. Through these legal documents you can express your choices on life-sustaining treatments or designate someone else to make health decisions for you, before a medical crisis occurs. It is never too early to issue an advance directive.
If you have questions or need more information about advance directives, you may call the following departments at Knapp Medical Center, weekdays, at:
Free Advance Directive Programs Knapp Medical Center provides free programs on advance directives. If you would like to schedule a program, please call 969-5237, weekdays. Patients, their families, doctors and caregivers sometimes face difficult and complex decisions about treatment options, artificial support, advance directives ("living wills"), and quality of life. Your doctor is the first person to consult about patient care issues. However, if you need more help, Knapp Medical Center's Ethics Committee will work with you and your doctor for assistance and guidance. Doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, and a chaplain are members of this committee. If you would like information and/or a referral to this hospital committee, please ask your doctor or nurse. If you:
Formal policies have been adopted to assure that your rights to make medical treatment decisions will be honored to the extent permitted by law. Knapp Medical Center has adopted policies relating to informed consent, and implementation and treatment decisions under the Directive to Physicians, the Medical Power of Attorney, the Out-of-Hospital Do-Not-Resuscitate Order and the Declaration for Mental Health Treatment. Complaints concerning advance directive requirements may be filed by calling the Texas Department of Health, 888/973-0022. You can save lives by deciding to be an organ and tissue donor. More than 60,000 Americans are waiting for life-saving organs while thousands more could benefit from tissue transplants. Tragically, the need for donated organs (such as the heart, kidneys, pancreas, lungs, liver and intestines) and tissues to help others (such as eyes, skin, bone heart valves and tendons) is greater than the supply. All major religions approve of organ and tissue donation and consider it a gift, an act of charity. If you have any questions or concerns, please call your religious advisor. Sharing your decision to be an organ and tissue donor with your family is as important as making the decision itself. Sharing your decision with your family now will prevent confusion or uncertainty about your wishes. Carrying out your wish to save other lives can provide your family with great comfort. If you still have questions and need additional information about organ and tissue donation, or if you would like to request a donor card or brochure, please call:
Texas Organ Sharing Alliance |