|
Is there a contract?
03/07/2007 The Star ARTICLES OF LAW by BHAG SINGH
When an unconscious person is taken to the emergency section of a hospital
and left there, is he liable to pay for treatment in such circumstances?
IT IS not uncommon to read of reports in which a person who has suffered an
injury was turned away by a private hospital. Such reports no doubt attract
considerable attention from the public.
In such instances, the injured is usually accompanied by a family member. It
is likely that the next-of-kin will be asked to sign the documents
undertaking to pay for treatment.
However, there are occasions where a passer-by may take an injured person to
the hospital’s emergency section and leave him there. The person who is left
at the hospital is neither accompanied by anyone nor conscious until he has
been given the necessary treatment.
A reader narrates an incident in which he was unconscious and someone took
him to the emergency section of a private hospital where he was given
treatment. The question that arises is whether such a person is liable to
pay for treatment in such circumstances?
Or it may be that a person in an unconscious state may be brought to the
emergency section and treated, and thereafter transferred to a government
hospital while still unconsciousness. Or it may happen that he may die.
Would he or his family be liable for the treatment administered?
A claim for payment in such circumstances has to be based on contract. The
word “emergency” merely indicates that something has to be attended to on an
urgent basis.
In ordinary circumstances, a patient who walks into a hospital to seek
treatment may not be asked to sign a formal contract, but a contractual
relationship is created for which payment must be made. If the amount is not
pre-agreed, then the law requires payment of a reasonable sum.
For a person to be liable to pay, there must be in existence a contract
between the parties involved. In this case, it involves the patient and the
private hospital.
The situation assumes a different scenario where the patient is unconscious
and is brought to an emergency section and left there for treatment. The
question that arises is whether the patient is liable to pay. The injured
says that it was not his decision to be taken to the private hospital.
The situation here involves both moral considerations and legal issues. For
the hospital, it would have been morally incorrect and ethically wrong not
to administer emergency treatment in the circumstances. The treatment could
perhaps save the life of the injured or cause his condition to stabilise.
Why then should the person refuse to pay? Generally an individual is, more
often than not, willing to pay for what has been received. However, in the
case of private hospitals, the charges can be quite intimidating to a person
who has been taken to the hospital without knowing what the services would
cost.
The refusal or reluctance to pay is caused more by the feeling that the
amount asked for appears to be beyond the patient’s means. The injured
should, on the other hand, be grateful that someone attended to his injuries
and endeavour to pay a reasonable sum.
In the light of the moral issues involved, it would be best for both parties
to resolve the matter in a reasonable manner by having the hospital treat
such emergency situations on a non-commercial basis.
Of course, what is reasonable to the injured who has no or little money and
what is reasonable to a private hospital could be worlds apart. But the
matter can only be resolved by both parties acting in good conscience based
on the facts and circumstances of each case.
The legal position, of course, involves different considerations. If the
injured, who was unconscious, was brought to the hospital by a passer-by and
left there, then in the absence of anything else, there would be no
contractual relationship between the injured and the hospital.
By virtue of Section 10 of Contracts Act 1950: “All agreements are contracts
if they are made by the free consent of parties competent to contract, for a
lawful consideration and with a lawful object, and are not ... expressly
declared to be void”.
Section 13 of Contracts Act 1950 goes on to say that: “Two or more persons
are said to consent when they agree upon the same thing in the same sense”.
In these circumstances, the injured who was unconscious would not have been
in a position to give consent to the terms implied or otherwise on which
treatment was given. Thus there would be no contractual basis and the act of
the hospital would be a gratuitous act in law and a person is not entitled
to be paid for a gratuitous act.
However, the position could be different if prior to the discharge the
injured regained consciousness and had signed an undertaking to pay the
charges incurred up to that stage.
Similarly, if a relative or friend of the injured person turned up and
signed an undertaking to pay for the treatment, then such person would in
law be liable for payment whether or not the injured regained consciousness
or not.
If course, it is not always that such a situations arise. Most of the time
people who receive treatment will pay for it; on other occasions the
hospital may reduce charges or in a worst-case scenario, have the amount
written off. But if the matter has to be resolved in the court, then the
legal position will no doubt be as discussed earlier. |
