Signed, not Ratified
 Patient Rights in France

Right to Informed Consent

Right to Information about his or her Health
Rights regarding the Medical File
Right to Privacy
Right to Complain and to Compensation
 
Rights of Users of Genetic Services
 

 



  1. Art. L.1111-2 of the Code of Public Health stipulates that everyone has the right to be informed about his medical condition. This right only exists in connection to the right to give informed consent.
  2. Art. L.1111-2, fourth paragraph recognizes the right not to know: the will of the patient not to know a diagnosis or a prognosis must be respected except when third parties would be exposed to a risk of infection.
  3. Art. L.1111-2, second paragraph stipulates that the obligation of information rests on every profession taking into account his professional competences and the professional rules which apply to him. Only the emergency of the individual case and the impossibility to inform dismiss of this obligation. This impossibility to inform can be understood as a recognition of the therapeutic exception. See concerning the therapeutic exception also art. L. 1111-7, third paragraph. Art. 35 of the Code of Medical Duty recognizes explicitly the possibility of a therapeutic exception: in the interest of the patient and because of legitimate reasons decided upon by the physician, a patient can be left in ignorance about a serious diagnosis or prognosis, except when by his disorder third parties are exposed to a risk of infection. A fatal prognosis must be communicated with circumspection to the patient. Also his fellow men must be informed about such a prognosis unless the patient has beforehand resisted against such a communication.

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