#06-BITESIZE-PREGNANCY SERIES-What is informed Decision making? Discussing Indian Charter of Patient's Rights

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The Indian charter of patient rights has a tagline. And that is, patients rights are human rights.

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Welcome to our bite sized pregnancy series, the aim of which is to provide knowledge, so as to equip you to make informed decisions throughout pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum.
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My name is Divya and two out of these 17 human rights, the rights that I just mentioned at the start of this episode, support this informed decision making that we are going to talk about today. By the end of this episode, you would know what informed decision making really is how these patients rights, aka human rights supported. So these rights are adopted by National Human Rights Commission India. And it makes good sense and good enough sense to check these out for your handy reference when you may need them. Go to google.com and search for Indian charter of patient rights adopted by n h r c. And you will find 17 rights out of which we will discuss too, today.

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Right to informed consent and right to informed refusal. Yes, you remember we did talk about these rights in brief in the first episode of this series that catch. So let us now figure out how these rights provided by the Government of India support informed decision making. And you must be wondering, what really informed decision making is. So first, let us discuss that.

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informed decision makings really is having all the puzzles of a picture laid out to you clear and visible for you to decide your next move to complete the puzzle. Think about it, the less number of pieces of the puzzle You see, the greater is your chance to make a mistake and create a skewed picture if that is possible.

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In real life, we are trying to figure out how many options how many ways there are actually to solve a problem. And once we know all of them, that is when we will be able to decide what best suits to solve a problem is about knowing all your options and all your alternatives in a situation.

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in pregnancy, during childbirth, and postpartum there are so many situations to make a decision. And that is when it is significant to know your rights.

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And that is what happens in a general medical situation.

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We need to give our consent to agree or disagree to a procedure.

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We often hesitate from asking too many questions to our healthcare providers or doctors to avoid seeming less knowledgeable or intrusive, maybe because I mean, who is the authority here, and that is where the entire picture is skewed.
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It is important to know these rights, it is important to understand that you sign the papers to give your consent for a procedure for a medical procedure to be done upon you.

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And since we need to sign those papers, we should have all the information we need all our doubts cleared to actually give our consent, but often the offload that responsibility to our healthcare providers. Because we know less because we do not know what questions we need to ask. You ask these four questions.

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In a medical setup, when you have a treatment to decide upon, you would ask these following four questions.

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Why do I need this procedure?

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How will this happen?
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What are the risks involved?

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What are my alternatives? If I do not want to go with this risk involving procedure? This is where these two rights give us that power of asking questions, the ones that we often resist from asking the

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right to informed consent.

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According to this right your healthcare provider should provide you all the information regarding the procedure. They are to use all the questions we talked about above. You need to know the risks involved with the procedure, the need of the procedure, why is it being carried out and the potential hazards as well as your alternatives to that procedure, if you do not want to go ahead with it before you go ahead and sign the papers and agree to a procedure.
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If you go ahead and sign the papers in the absence of this information
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Your consent will be assumed as informed consent, that you knew what you were going for, you have the right to informed consent, and that is what the entire medical system seeks. But we very rarely know that. And that is why it puts the responsibility of your health of that decision on you, and not your caregiver or the doctor, you need to make sure that you have all the information before you go ahead and sign that paper

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or agree to something. Now, here's the catch. The caregiver may believe that giving you a good 60% of the information is enough for you to give your consent. But you need to make sure that all your doubts are cleared before you agree to that procedure.
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Remember, the doctor does not decide the procedure for you. They tell you what all options you have to treat a condition. And you will decide from those options which procedure to go with, to go ahead with. And in case there is just one way to treat a problem, you have the right to weigh the risks and benefits and seek all the information before you give your informed consent. Because even if you give your uninformed consent, it will be assumed as informed consent. So why not exercise your right
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ball is in your court. Another ride that helps you take your decisions is right to informed refusal. And this second ride backs the first ride.
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Once you know everything you need to know, you have the right to refuse to what kind of care from your healthcare provider and choose an alternative if you want. And I think here, I need to mention another right of the third ones added to the list, which lets you do this. And that is the right to a second opinion. So if you think that the risks to a procedure are too much, and you're sceptic, you can always take a second opinion. And I'm very happy that we exercise this right? Quite a lot in our country.

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But this episode is also to let you know that informed decision making is your right. So these three rights. One more added these rights give you the power to ask questions and extract the information you need without than hesitation and without that gap of authority. Because it's your decision extremely significant in pregnancy and childbirth. And I'll give you my example why
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while I was in labour, I was administered an injection to rush up my pains, we did not need the delivery to happen quickly. We just asked how much more time will it take to the doctor decided to administer an injection and then I did not know that I have the right to ask those questions before the procedure is done. I was progressing to define in my labour, there was no risk there was no emergency. So I should have asked why am I being administered an injection? How will this affect my normally progressing labour? Am I at any risk already?

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Will this cause a risk officer session? I did not know. Now that I know that. What administering an injection gun Do you

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think I should have known what questions to ask? I should have exercised my right to informed consent before just nodding and saying yes, give me that injection. So it's very crucial. And sometimes we do not understand until a wrong has been done.

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And this informed decision making does not really happen on a huge canvas. It can be those small small decisions in a procedure, the example of which I just gave you. So the next time you ask about all the different ice cream flavours at a local ice cream parlour, or frantically scroll through an online delivery platform. Ask yourself is your health any less significant? When we look for our options before choosing every trivial thing in life? Why don't we offload the major decisions on others. Of course, it is a no brainer to choose an ice cream flavour. But that is the thing even in a medical setup, you do not interfere in the diagnosis. You let the healthcare provider do their job of expedience of authority. But when they have figured out what is the problem and how it can be solved and what all is required to fix it. You need to ask your questions to give that consent to go ahead with it. And it is your right you anyway have to give your consent if you do not
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Give your consent the medical procedure will not be performed. It's all documented. So you do not make the ice cream here in the medical setup. But you, but you do ask if the ingredients have any side effects? And if yes, is that an alternative?

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So yeah, so that was all about it. That was all about informed decision making your rights that supported the rights that give you the power to make informed choices in healthcare procedures, generally and everywhere. So yeah, I hope I could clear what it is and again, urge you to go through all your rights to have that knowledge. Because knowledge is power because it gives you the power.
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So I'm signing off on that note, do send in if you have any more questions, if you like listening to me, please subscribe, write a review, drop a comment. send a note. We love hearing from you. Tell a friend who may benefit out of this And remember, you got the bar. Keep listening.