Baloney.
You're kidding me. The US has even more stringent controls than the UK.
Okay, enough. This is not the place to discuss the myths and legends of healthcare in the US and the UK and what's worse is that you're both understating and overstating willy nilly.
Here's the Cliff Notes version for anyone vaguely interested in the issues of consent.
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Consent-to-treatment/Pages/How-does-it-work.aspx
Yes I knew about that before you posted the link.
Yes in the UK you can be Section(committed) to a psychiatric hospital and forced to have treatment under the Mental Health Act. But they need 2 psychiatrist and a Social Worker to do that.
As it says:
Under the Mental Health Act (1983), people with certain mental health conditions – such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or dementia – can be compulsorily detained and treated at a hospital or psychiatric clinic without their consent, if deemed necessary.
If the person lacks capacity (the ability to understand information and use it to make a decision) and has not previously expressed their wishes, their mental health condition may be treated without consent, as may any related conditions, such as those resulting from self-harm. However, unrelated physical conditions cannot be treated without consent.
That is correct.
Also if a person is deemed mentally incompetent then yes they can be forced to have treatment for a physical condition. But they would first have to be deemed mentally incompetent by a psychiatrist and then the Health trust would need to get a court order. But that is very rarely used in the UK. Forced treatment by court order that is.
Additional procedures
There may be some circumstances when, during an operation, it becomes obvious that the person immediately requires an additional emergency procedure that was not included in their original consent.
For example, they may be having abdominal surgery, when the surgeon notices that their appendix is dangerously close to bursting and needs to be removed.
If it's felt that it would be too dangerous to delay the additional procedure to get consent, this procedure can go ahead if it is considered to be in the person's best interests.
However, extra procedures cannot be done just because it would be convenient for the healthcare professionals. There has to be a clear medical reason why it would be unsafe to wait to obtain the person's consent.
Emergency treatment
If a person requires emergency treatment to save their life, and they are unable to give consent as a result of being incapacitated (for example, they are unconscious), treatment will be carried out.
In these cases, the reasons why treatment was necessary will be fully explained once they have recovered.
Yes that's true but we are talking about strapping your arms down during C Sections or a C Section.
And that is not done in the UK. Strapping the arms down during C Sections is not a practice at all in the UK.
Nobody who has a C Section in the UK has ever had their arms strapped down. And it is not done for any other surgery in the UK unless you are having surgery on your arms maybe.
Before I came to America I spoke to the head of my local NHS hospital in England and several other hospitals in London. I told them what they do in the American hospitals here. The hospital manager of both my local NHS hospital and the other hospitals I asked about this in the UK. Told me they don't strap arms down during C Section or any other surgery. They are not allowed to do that.
Yes in the UK they use psychical restraint such as holding someone down if they are detained under the MH Act mostly and some other situations And they use sedation and GA but they don't strap patients to beds or operating tables Nope. That kind of restraint that is strapping someone down is illegal in the UK.
Yes here in America and a lot of other countries hospital can and do restrain people by strapping their arms, legs and use 4 pint restraints to the bed or operating table to restrain.
But this does not happen in England. England is one of the few counties in the world where this form of restraint (strapping or tying someone down) is illegal.
I also spoke to a UK childbirth group who is in regular contact with NHS hospitals doctors, midwives as well as other mothers in the UK. And they also confirmed that this (strapping the arms down) has never happened too any women in the UK. Also none of the supervises of midwives who are in charge of both the maternity care and know everything about NHS hospital practices have ever heard of this practice. Neither have any UK doctors.
They don't do it in the UK.
