Prawo do żądania nieudzielenia informacji jako wyraz autonomii pacjenta

Abstract

Right to demand to withhold information is an expression of respect towards a patient’s will and his autonomy as well as denial of the paternalistic conception of the relation between a sick patient and his doctor. It is the patient who, as a disposer of the right to information, decides if and to what extent he wants to receive it. Despite the fact that right to information has been widely described in medical law literature, the right to demand to withhold information, which is directly connected to it and is it’s consequence, has not as yet been thoroughly examined. Because of that it seems right and reasonable to more closely analyse the issue of patient autonomy boundaries. It should be emphasised that none of the bills pertaining to the obligation to provide information, actually state that the patient has a right to not be informed of his state of health. The institution of demanding to withhold information raises many concerns while in medical practice it very often occurs. The following paper examines the scope of a patient’s right to demand to withhold information as well as the circumstances of excluding and restricting that right. Also, it widely describes the consequences caused by the right to resign information. In particular, one part of the paper is devoted to the legal character of an expressed consent to treatment in accordance with opinions expressed in the legal doctrine.