Your Healthcare Rights
The Australian Charter of Healthcare Rights describes what each person in Australia has the right to expect when receiving health care. This includes people with disabilities.
Everyone has the right to:
Access: to the health services and treatment that meets their needs;
Safety: to receive safe, high quality healthcare in an environment that is safe;
Respect: to be treated with dignity and respect, no matter your age, gender, background, religion, sexual orientation, culture, or physical or intellectual ability;
Partnership: the right to have your say in decisions about your healthcare, to ask questions and be involved, to include people you want in planning and decision-making, and to make decision with healthcare providers to the extent that you choose and are able to;
Information: the right to clear information about your condition, services, and costs of treatments. To be given assistance if needed, to understand. To be told if something has gone wrong, how it might affect your health and what is being done to make care safe;
Privacy: the right to have personal privacy respected, and health information kept secure and confidential;
Give feedback: the right to provide feedback or make a complaint, to have the feedback or complaint addressed effectively, and the right to participate in improving the quality of health services.
The rights of people with disabilities are also enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which recognises that people with disability have the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health without discrimination.
Decision-making and consent
When possible, health care providers must have your consent (your permission) before giving you any treatments or talking to anyone else about your health. For people under the age of 18 or those with impaired decision-making capability, another person such as a parent or carer can make decisions for them. In some cases, a Guardian is appointed to make these decisions. You can see Get Started for more information on guardianship.
Healthcare providers are anybody involved in your healthcare. This might be doctors, nurses, receptionists, dentists, or allied health workers such as physiotherapists or psychologists.
Your health information must always be kept private. This means that your healthcare provider is not allowed to tell anybody about your health or healthcare, unless they have your consent or the law says they have to.
It is the responsibility of healthcare providers to support people with disability and their families to understand the information they are being given so that they are able to give informed consent to treatments. This might mean being given the information in a different format, such as Easy Read or visual symbols. To give informed consent, a person with disability must show that they understand the choice about their treatment, this is called having ‘capacity to consent.’ They are entitled to give their consent in different ways. Some people may like to use words, others might prefer using pictures or visuals, or assisted communication devices.
Healthcare providers may need to make reasonable adjustments so that a person with disability can understand and decide. Some examples of reasonable adjustments are:
– using simple language;
– providing visuals or Easy Read information;
– allowing more time for the person to process and ask questions;
– writing the information down in plain language so the person can talk to trusted people later (or remember the information themselves);
– considering background noise/ distractions and fatigue when delivering information;
– giving information in a different format.
This type of process is called supported decision-making and when done effectively, means the person with disability can make their own decision, as far as their capacity allows. When assessing decision-making capacity, it is important not to assume that the person does not have capacity, but instead to think about how they might be supported to provide consent. See Get Started for a link to Tasmanian Health’s Capacity Toolkit.
The Choose Wisely questions are useful to help you or the person you support in decision-making:
– Do I really need this test, treatment, or procedure?
– What are the risks?
– Are there simpler, safer options?
– What happens if I don’t do anything?
– What are the costs?
Rights for Carers
If you are a carer for someone who has a health issue, you have the right to be involved in making plans for the person’s care. You also have the right to tell the healthcare provider any information about the person’s health that is related to their care, and to be listened to and taken seriously.
Rights for Healthcare Providers
It is also important that you respect the rights of your healthcare providers. This means being honest and telling your healthcare provider if you are not able or do not want to do what they suggest. This also means accepting that your doctor might not be able to help you with everything you need, and that sometimes you will need to see a different doctor or wait for a treatment.
Children’s Rights
All children have the right to grow up safe and healthy. When it comes to healthcare, children and young people have a right to be told about their care in a way that they can understand, and to have their views listened to and taken seriously. Social stories can help with this. See Get Started for a link to some social stories you can use to help communicate to your child what will happen when they have a medical procedure or visit a doctor or hospital.
GET STARTED
The Tasmanian Health Department (with NSW Health) have produced a capacity assessment tool, check out their Capacity Assessment Toolkit for information about how capacity can be measured for people with cognitive impairment.
For an easy to understand guide to your rights in healthcare, check out The Australian Charter of Health Care Rights (Easy Read version)
For languages other than English, visit the Australian Charter of Healthcare Right translations page.
The Tasmanian Department of Health has a page called Your rights and responsibilities which tells you about what to expect from your treatment in hospital, and what is expected of you.
This booklet from the Australian Human Rights Commission talks about the rights of children and young people in Australia – What does the Children’s Rights Report 2017 say? | Australian Human Rights Commission
For information about who can make health decisions for people with impaired decision-making capacity, check out our Finding Your Way article TASCAT Guardianship Stream – Finding Your Way
Some useful social stories have been produced by the NSW government to support children and adults with disability when they participate in medical procedures – Say Less Show More | Agency for Clinical Innovation (nsw.gov.au)
If you believe you are being discriminated against or treated in an unfair way by a health provider compared to others due to your disability, make sure to report it by visiting the Equal Opportunity Tasmania website.
Find out more about discrimination and how to make a complaint in our Finding Your Way article Complaints in Health.
Making a Complaint:
If you are unhappy with the service you have received from a healthcare provider, you have the right to make a complaint and have this complaint dealt with quickly and fairly. If you feel that your healthcare provider has not respected your rights, it is a good idea to first contact the provider about the problem if you feel comfortable doing this. You could write them a letter or talk to them face-to-face. You might like to have a trusted friend or family member come along to support you. Explain why you are unhappy and give your healthcare provider a chance to fix the problem.
If you feel that the problem has not been fixed, you can make a complaint to the Health Complaints Commissioner. The Health Complaints Commissioner is the person who makes sure that our rights are looked after when we use health services in Tasmania: Health Complaints Commissioner – How to make a complaint
If you need some help writing a letter, Libraries Tasmania offer free support with reading and writing. You can talk to someone at your local library who can help you with spelling, grammar, and typing or handwriting your letter. Find your local library here – Need help with reading, writing or maths?
Find out more about complaints in health in our Finding Your Way article Complaints in Health.
ACTION STEPS
Here you can find a simple list of the best actions to take if you are interested in this topic:
1 .
Be informed about your rights in health. Read the Australian Charter of Healthcare Rights to learn about your rights when it comes to healthcare.
2 .
If you or your child are going to hospital, familiarise yourself with the rights of patients in hospital in Tasmania before your visit. They will tell you what to expect of healthcare providers in hospital and what your responsibilities are in the hospital system.
3 .
If you are unhappy with a health service or feel that your rights have not been respected, talk to your health service provider (if you are comfortable) and give them a chance to find a solution for you.
4 .
If you are still unhappy and feel the problem has not been fixed, you can make a complaint to the Health Complaints Commissioner. Find out more in Finding Your Way Complaints in Health article.