Patient Refusal Of Treatment: Fill & Download for Free

We were called at about 3am to a familiar house in the Raploch for a chest pain. Now we suspected this was shite because I knew this characters medical history better than my own. When we got there we found the patient had called because she needed a light for her cigarette. Unfortunately, and purely by accident, my colleague put the defibrillator down on her tobacco tin and upset the lot. We were asked to leave (quite strongly) and we accepted this as a refusal of treatment.

3 calls come to mind that i had to take in by ambulance:mid 20s female calls 911 and meets us in the parking lot. She tells us she is pregnant and wants pre natal vitamins. I tell her, “you know you can get those at the drug store or dollar store, right?” She was like, nope, i want to go to the ER. We take her in, they do a pregnancy test in the ER, turns out she wasn’t even pregnant.we get called at about 2 am. This lady says her 3 year old daughter had a nightmare so she wants the child taken to the ER for a psych eval.we get called out to a local hotel for an “unknown medical problem.” We get there and ask the man what was going on. He says “I was down at the Walmarts, and my toothbrush was in my car. Someone broke into my car, used my toothbrush, and put it back. I used it about an hour ago and now i have sores on my mouth”. We load him up on the stretcher and are on the elevator and the guy was like “hey how am i suppose to get back here after I’m done at the hospital”. I said “i don’t know man, this is a one way flight”. He said “well can i just drive myself”. I said “absolutely, sign here” and handed him a refusal of treatment and transport form to sign.

One of the very first thing they teach us in EMT class is that as long as the patient is conscious and alert and capable of making coherent decisions, The patient always has the right to refuse to be transported, regardless of who called 911 (forcing someone to go to the hospital against their free will is similar to kidnapping). Responding to a rescue call and having a patient refuse transport is pretty common. But, if you are unconscious or did something intentionally in an attempt to seriously injure yourself or others, then the choice is no longer yours. The law tells EMT’s that anytime someone is unconscious, we have what is called “implied consent”, meaning that the law makes the assumption that anyone who is unconscious would want (or need) to get medical attention at a hospital. But when I say that someone who intentionally injured themselves, I don’t mean accidents like a person playing 5 finger filet (where you put your hand out with fingers splayed and use a knife to hit the table or ground in between your fingers with a knife quickly while trying NOT to cut/impale their own fingers), I mean situations where an individual intentionally tries to do something that they know could result in a life threatening injury or death. So as long as your are conscious and alert as well in your right mind, you have the right to refuse transport. But if we think the illness or injury will soon cause you to become unconscious or not in the right state of mind, don’t be surprised if the ambulance crew stays with you for a while so that they can get you treatment by transporting you after you are unable to make that decision on your own.