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Right to Informed Consent| ESTONIA
| GENERAL OVERVIEW | BIOMEDICINE CONVENTION | EU MEMBER STATES | TYPES OF PATIENT RIGHTS LEGISLATION |
| 1. Estonian law explicitly provides the requirement of informed consent. A patient may be examined and health care services may be provided to him or her only with his or her consent. 2. The doctor has to inform the patient of the results of the examination of the patient, the state of his or her health, any possible illnesses and the development thereof, the nature and purpose of the health care services provided, the risks and consequences associated with the provision of such health care services and of other available and necessary health care services. He may not promise that a patient will recover or that an operation will be successful. A patient has to be informed early on before the provision of the service so that he has sufficient time to make up his or her mind. 3. The physician may ask that consent is confirmed in writing. However the Regulation N°144 on Quality Assurance Requirements for Health Services requires that the consent of the patient in case of procedures which may involve risks has to be documented and signed by the patient or the person representing him or her and has to be preserved together with the health card or medical history of the patient. 4. If a patient is unconscious or incapable of exercising his or her will for any reason and if he or she does not have a legal representative or his or her legal representative cannot be reached, the provision of health care services is permitted without the consent of the patient if this is in the interests of the patient and corresponds to the intentions expressed by him or her earlier or to his or her presumed intentions and if the failure to provide health care services promptly would put the life of the patient at risk or significantly damage his or her health. 5. A patient may withdraw his or her consent within a reasonable period of time after granting consent. At the request of a provider of health care services, an application to withdraw such consent shall be in a format which can be reproduced in writing. 6. With respect to the legal position of minors in relation to the provision of health care, Estonian law stipulates that in the case of a patient with restricted active legal capacity, the legal representative of the patient has the right to informed consent in so far as the patient is unable to consider the pros and cons responsibly. 7. There is no regulation in Estonian law about proxy decision-making for incapacitated adults. The practice varies a lot: most of the times the treating physician takes the decision on behalf of the patient or in more rare cases a relative of the patient. |