Rochdale Healthcare (NHS) Trust v C
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 1997 |
| Year | 1997 |
| Date | 1997 |
| Court | Family Division |
JOHNSON, J
Medical treatment – woman in labour requiring Caesarian section – refusing consent – whether patient capable of weighing-up information whilst in the throes of labour.
The patient was in hospital for the birth of the child. The consultant obstetrician was of opinion that a Caesarian section was necessary. He was of opinion, and told the patient, that without the operation both she and the child would die.
The patient would not agree to a Caesarian section as she had had a previous delivery in this way and subsequently suffered backache and pain around the resulting scar. She said she would rather die than have a Caesarian section again.
The operation was required urgently and an application was made to the court less than an hour before it would need to be carried out.
The consultant obstetrician was of opinion that the mental capacity of the patient was not in question and that she seemed to be fully competent. She was capable of comprehending and retaining information about the proposed treatment and of believing such information.
Held – An essential element in assessing a patient's capacity to decide whether or not to accept treatment was whether she was capable of weighing-up the information she was given. In this case the patient was in the throes of labour with all that involved in terms of pain and emotional stress. A patient who, in those circumstances could speak in terms which seemed to accept the inevitability of her own death, was not a patient who was able properly to weigh-up the considerations that arose so as to make any valid decision. For the same reasons as were given in Norfolk and Norwich Healthcare (NHS) Trust (ante) it would be in the best interests of the patient for the proposed procedure to be performed.
Cases referred to in judgment:F (In Utero), Re [1988] FCR 529; [1988] Fam 122; [1988] 2 WLR 1288; [1988] 2 All ER 193.
Norfolk and Norwich Healthcare (NHS) Trust v W (ante).
Tameside and Glossop Acute Services Trust v CH[1996] 1 FCR 753.
Mark Leigh, solicitor, for the NHS Trust.
MR JUSTICE JOHNSON.At about 5.15 pm on Friday 21 June 1996 I interrupted the hearing of the application made to me in Norfolk and Norwich Healthcare (NHS) Trust v W (ante) to hear an application made in very similar circumstances in respect of a patient in hospital in Rochdale. The application was made by Mr Leigh, a partner in Hempsons, who had been instructed by the hospital shortly after 4.30 pm
Mr Leigh had spoken to the consultant...
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