Ethics & Patient Rights
Your Rights as a Patient
 Every patient has the right to be involved.
At Lifespan we are committed to the right of all patients to
participate in making medically appropriate decisions about their health
care. Because illness, injury or other factors can interfere with a
person's ability to make medical decisions, we encourage adults to have
written instructions, called advance directives, about their wishes. Your
quality of care will be the same whether or not you have written down your
instructions ahead of time, but advance directives will make your choices
known to your care givers.
More about advance directives
All patients have choices. Recent court decisions have confirmed that each of us has a legal right
to accept or refuse medical treatment—even a right, under certain
circumstances, to die. And you don't lose that right simply because you
may lose competency or the ability to communicate as a result of trauma,
pain, medication, disease or age. In addition, your right to participate
in important decisions about your medical care or treatment was ensured by
Congress when, in 1990, it passed a law called the Patient
Self-Determination Act. This law also requires health care providers to
ask patients if they have signed documents called advance directives, such
as a living will or a durable power of attorney for health care (in
Massachusetts, a health care proxy).
Lifespan has prepared this site to explain your rights relating
to medical care and treatment. It also explains advance directives and
defines important terms. Advance directives are the documents you may
prepare in order to make sure your wishes are known and clearly understood
by family members and care givers in case you become unable to make
decisions for yourself.
Your medical rights
In the state of Rhode Island, if you are a competent adult 18 years of
age or older, you have the right to make decisions about your own medical
care, including the right to refuse any life-sustaining medical treatment
or procedure. Competent adults are those who have the ability to:
- understand the nature of their medical condition(s)
- understand the benefits, risks and burdens of the treatment
recommended by their doctors
- understand the alternatives to that treatment, and
- reach an informed decision.
Your decisions and your health care facility
You have the right to be informed, in writing, of any policies adopted
by the hospital or other health care facility about the way in which the
facility will respect your rights to make health care decisions.
Find out more:
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