Caring for you
Public Hospital Charter
Patient Rights and Responsibilities
Caring for you
Public Hospital Charter
Patient Rights and Responsibilities
(The cover photograph is courtesy of the Interactive Communication and Development, Department of Health)
© Northern Territory Government 2012.
This publication is copyright. The information in this report may be freely copied and distributed for non-profit purposes such as study, research, health service management and public
information subject to the inclusion of an acknowledgment of the source. Reproduction for other purposes requires the written permission of the Chief Executive of the Department of Health, Northern Territory.
An electronic version is available at: http://health.nt.gov.au/Hospitals General enquiries about this publication should be directed to:
Executive Director, Strategy and Reform Department of Health
PO Box 40596, Casuarina, NT 0811
Contents
I. Department of Health Mission Statement . . . .4
II. What can you expect from the Australian Health System?. . . 5
III. Services you can expect from the Northern Territory public hospital system . . . 6
IV. Rights . . . 7
Family and Friends . . . 7
Access and Care. . . 7
Considerate and courteous care. . . 7
Respect for your privacy . . . 7
Asking for an interpreter . . . 8
Aboriginal Interpreter Service. . . 8
Reasonable care. . . 9
Treatment . . . 9
Decision making . . . 9
End of life care and decision making. . . 10
Second opinion. . . 10
Your information. . . 10
V. Your Responsibilities . . . 11
VI. Services . . . 11
Public Hospital Services . . . 12
Public or private? . . . 12
When charges may apply?. . . 12
Outpatient services. . . 12
Charges for some hospital services. . . 13
Special payment arrangements. . . 14
If you are entitled to receive compensation. . . 14
Motor Accident Compensation Scheme . . . 15
Department of Veterans Affairs patient . . . 15
VII. Complaints and Suggestions . . . 16
Expressing your opinion and making a complaint or suggestion. . . 16
I. Department of Health Mission Statement
If you have difficulty understanding any part of this document, please ask the hospital staff to explain it to you.
Our Department
Our Vision
Healthy Territorians living in healthy communities
Our Mission
We provide, protect and improve the health and wellbeing of all
Territorians in partnership with individuals, families and the community.
Our Values
• We are here for our clients
• Respect and cooperation
• Responsibility to society
• Pride in our work
MY RIGHTS WHAT THIS MEANS
Access
I have a right to health care. I can access services to address my health care needs.
Safety
I have a right to receive safe and high quality
care. I receive safe and high quality health
services, provided with professional care, skill and competence.
Respect
I have a right to be shown respect, dignity
and consideration. The care provided shows respect to me and
my culture, beliefs, values and personal characteristics.
Communication
I have a right to be informed about services, treatment, options and costs in a clear and open way.
I receive open, timely and appropriate communication about my health care in a way I can understand.
Participation
I have a right to be included in decisions and
choices about my care. I may join in making decisions and choices about my care and about health service planning.
Privacy
I have a right to privacy and confidentiality of
my personal information. My personal privacy is maintained and proper handling of my personal health and other information is assured.
Comment
I have a right to comment on my care and to
have my concerns addressed. I can comment on or complain about my care and have my concerns dealt with properly and promptly.
II. What can you expect from the Australian Health System?
Source: Australian Charter of Healthcare Rights, ACSQHC 2008.
III. Services you can expect from the Northern Territory public hospital system
This charter represents a commitment from the Northern Territory and Australian Governments to the rights and needs of individuals using the public health system and is a part of the program to improve the delivery of hospital services to the public.
The charter sets out your rights – both legal and as a user of a service – in relation to access to information, consent to treatment, confidentiality and your right to receive appropriate care. It outlines how you should be treated as an individual and how you are entitled to consideration and respect.
It also outlines how you can participate in decision making and tells you your responsibilities as a consumer.
The Department of Health aims to give you the best possible care in all hospitals within the Northern Territory. To do this we need to work together to ensure that you receive safe, quality care; feel you can talk to us, receive treatment of the highest standard, and respect each others views.
Partnerships are made possible if we:
► Speak to each other with respect and honesty
► Listen to each other
► Treat each other without prejudice and with consideration for cultural diversity
As part of the partnership we welcome any feedback you have, whether it be a suggestion, complaint or compliment.
Talk to us – let us know if you think we are not listening, or if you think something is not right.
This patient charter has been developed to provide you with straightforward information about public hospital services and what patients can expect under Medicare from the public hospital system such as:
► When charges may apply
► Access to medical records
► How patients can lodge a complaint if they are unhappy about their treatment in a public hospital
This charter is based on the principles of the Australian Charter of Healthcare Rights and Medicare Australia, which in essence confirm that public hospital services should be available to public hospital patients, without having to pay, on the basis of clinical need.
IV. Rights
Family and Friends You have a right to:
Have visitors during visiting hours.
See visitors in private, where possible.
Have reasonable access to a telephone.
Be visited by your religious adviser at any time.
Have a family member or friend with you to help you make decisions about your treatment or support you during your stay in hospital.
Access and Care
Considerate and courteous care You have a right to:
Be treated with dignity and respect.
Be treated in a way that respects your individuality, culture and beliefs, as long as this does not limit the rights of others.
Wear your own clothes and have a few of your things with you.
Respect for your privacy You have a right to:
Be treated with consideration for your privacy, safety and comfort.
Have your personal information protected.
Access your own personal information.
Privacy
The Information Privacy Principles in the Information Act are binding on all hospital staff, paid and voluntary, who provide public health services. They are required to ensure all identifying personal information is kept confidential to those involved in your treatment. Actual or implied consent to disclosure of confidential information on a ‘need to know’ basis is given by you when you are referred to a specialist or being treated in the public hospital system. Your information may be shared with a member of your health care team and may be made available to those treating you on subsequent occasions and at other public health services sites.
Asking for an interpreter You have a right to:
Have your care explained to you in a language you understand.
Have consent forms explained in a language you understand.
Have access to an interpreter, by telephone or in person.
Be provided with information about assessment and waiting times in a language you understand.
Hospital staff can arrange for either an on-site or telephone interpreter. Translations of
documents relating to patients’ hospital treatment, medical history and relevant reports are also available.
INTERPRETING AND TRANSLATING SERVICE NT Ground Floor, Pella House
40 Cavenagh Street, DARWIN NT 0800 GPO Box 4621, DARWIN NT 0801
Freecall for the Northern Territory: 1800 676 254 Phone: 8999 8353
Monday-Friday: 8.30 am-4.00 pm Email: [email protected]
Web: www.itsnt.nt.gov.au
TRANSLATING AND INTERPRETING SERVICE
24 hour service 7 days a week can be accessed by contacting: 131 450
The Northern Territory Translator and Interpreting Service provide on-site services in migrant and refugee languages throughout the Northern Territory. These services are provided free of charge to Northern Territory Government agencies when residents access their services.
ABORIGINAL INTERPRETER SERVICE Darwin Office
Telephone: (08) 8999 8353 Fax: (08) 8999 8855
Office Hours: 8.00 am - 4.00 pm. After hours service ring 8999 8353 Office: Pella House, Ground Floor, 40 Cavenagh Street, Darwin http://www.nt.gov.au/ais
Alice Springs Office
Telephone: (08) 8951 5576
Reasonable care
You are owed a duty of care by hospital staff given their experience, position and role.
You have a right to:
Be told by staff caring for you who they are and their role in your care.
Be told the qualifications of the staff that are caring for you.
Treatment Decision making You have a right to:
Be told about treatment options available to you and the benefits, risks and side effects. These include any material risks – a risk that you or a reasonable person in the same position would consider being significant, including matters important to you – and having them explained to you.
Your treatment team should provide information about diagnostic tests and the results and should explain the implications of those results to you.
As well as your right to consent, you may refuse to have a test or treatment at any time, provided you are capable of making an informed decision. This includes being able to change your decision or refuse treatment at any time and to be given an explanation of the possible consequences of not taking the advice of hospital staff. Your treating team should explain the uses and anticipated effects of the drugs you are being given.
Ask questions about your condition and have the decisions you make about your treatment respected.
This includes having your treating team explain the chances of success, the need for any further treatment, the likelihood of return to good health, convalescence and rehabilitation requirements.
Ask for a meeting with your treating team to discuss your condition and treatment.
Refuse to participate in a research project. You will be informed if a treatment is experimental or being used in research.
Refuse to be admitted to hospital, regardless of your condition or against medical advice.
Decide to end your hospital stay against medical advice.
Be consulted about your ongoing care and discharge plan before you leave hospital.
Authorise another person to make decisions for you and to have the same rights on behalf of your child.
Children, as they get older, have the right to be consulted and to make decisions on their own behalf.
Once 16, they may decide freely for themselves (on an informed basis) whether or not to accept treatment.
A person, who has been appointed by the court as a Guardian, has the legal right and obligation to participate in decision-making.
In the Northern Territory emergency medical procedures can be performed when you are unable to give consent, if you require a life saving treatment, or to prevent a serious permanent disability.
End-of-life care and decision making Your right to know and to choose:
You have the choice to receive life-prolonging treatment when medically warranted or refuse life- prolonging treatment. Caregivers have an ethical and legal obligation to acknowledge these stated choices and preferences which may be documented in an Advance Care Plan.
Appropriate withholding and withdrawal of life sustaining treatment
Appropriate end-of-life care should intend to provide the best possible treatment for you. This means that the goals of care shift to mainly comfort and dignity, rather than withholding or withdrawal of life- sustaining medical interventions that are in the best interest of the dying patient.
Second opinion You have a right to:
Ask for a second opinion, and for the health service to help arrange this for you. This means that you can seek opinions and information from other sources about your diagnosis and treatment.
Your information You have a right to:
Have information about you kept private.
Allow, or refuse, to allow a request by the hospital to pass on information about you to other services, unless this is required by law.
Access your medical record through your doctor or Medical Records.
Receive a copy of your medical record through Medical Records or under Freedom of Information (FOI).
You are entitled to see information kept about you by government services, either personally or
through another person you nominate, and to access this information. You may also seek amendment of your personal information if it is wrong or out of date, or to include a statement in your records if you believe the information is wrong or out of date.
For more information on your information privacy rights please contact:
Information and Privacy Unit Department of Health
Level 1, 87 Mitchell Street, Darwin NT 0800 PO Box 40596, Casuarina NT 0811
V. Your Responsibilities
Just as care provided to you should need to reflect certain principles, you also have a responsibility to assist with your care. Be actively involved in your health care.
You have a responsibility to:
Ask questions about your care, ask for a further explanation if you do not understand what you have been told and ask your doctor or health care team for a full, clear explanation of your treatment, drugs and tests which are recommended to you.
Follow your agreed care plan, including following directions given to you and report any change in your condition to the health care team.
Tell us if you have any worries. We can only help you if we know something is worrying you. So please let us know if you think we are not listening or if you think something is not right.
Tell us as much as you can about your health, including what medications you take, any problems or complications experienced previously, particularly any allergies.
Treat staff and other patients with respect and ask your visitors to do the same and make sure the things you do don’t harm other people in the hospital.
Tell the hospital staff before you leave, if you choose to end your stay in hospital before you complete your treatment.
Help hospital staff by being aware of the demands on them and by
communicating your needs with courtesy. Emergency and immediate care needed by another patient may determine how quickly your request is addressed.
Please keep in mind that hospital staff care for
many patients at the same time.
We try to do this as quickly and as well as we can. This means that we treat the sickest people first.
To make sure Northern Territory public hospitals are a safe place for everyone, the Department has a zero tolerance policy on
aggression.
VI. Services
Public Hospital services
All Australian residents are eligible to be treated in a public hospital, free of charge, as a public patient, with access based on assessed clinical need, regardless of the ability to pay.
You have the right if you are away from home and need health care to seek treatment at any nearby public hospital.
Public or private?
Choosing to become a public patient:
You have the right – even if you are privately insured – when attending a public hospital to be asked if you wish to be treated as a public or private patient. Regardless of whether you choose public or private patient care you have the right to know what this decision means.
If you admit yourself as a private patient you have your choice of doctor and you are responsible for the costs of your hospital care, either directly or through private health insurance.
As a public patient, you do not have your choice of doctor and no charges will be made for medical services.
If you are not asked you have the right to make your choice known to staff at the hospital.
When charges may apply?
Outpatient services
You may need ongoing care and treatment as an outpatient when you are discharged from hospital.
This can involve specialist medical consultation and other services such as physiotherapy or advice on nutrition.
Some outpatient care is subject to a means test or has charges similar to those applying in the general community. These may include:
► Dental and optical services including spectacles and hearing aids
► Pharmaceuticals, such as drugs on prescription
► Surgical supplies, prostheses, aids, appliances and home modifications
If you are unsure about whether a particular service is provided without charge, you should ask the staff caring for you.
Charges for some hospital services These circumstances occur only:
1. If you choose to be treated as a private patient. When you make this choice, you will have to pay for:
Hospital services, which you receive, such as accommodation (this includes food and linen services) and nursing care
Professional services, such as your doctors Dental services
Diagnostic services, such as X-rays, CT scans, electrocardiograph Pathology tests, such as blood tests
Prostheses, such as hip or joint replacements or heart valves
If you have private health insurance, you should check with your health insurance fund for details of what hospital services you are entitled to claim under your insurance cover.
If you elect to be a private patient and do not have private health insurance, you will be required to pay all anticipated hospital costs prior to admission if you are to be in hospital for up to two or three days, or half the anticipated hospital costs prior to your admission, if you are to be in hospital for a longer time.
Also, if you are a private patient your doctors will send you accounts for their services. Most medical services provided while you are a private patient are partly covered by Medicare. If you have private health insurance, your health fund may also pay some or all of the balance, depending on how much the doctor charges. You should check with your health fund about the amount of cover you have for medical services.
If you have any further queries about what Medicare covers for hospital or medical services, telephone Medicare on 13 20 11.
2. If you are a long stay patient waiting placement in a residential facility
A long stay patient waiting placement in a residential facility is an admitted patient who has been accommodated in one or more hospitals for more than 35 days (without a break exceeding seven days) and who no longer requires acute care.
If you are a public long stay patient waiting placement in a residential facility, you will be charged a daily patient contribution, which is not insurable and must be paid by you.
If you elect to be a private long stay patient waiting placement in a residential facility, who is under the care of a private medical practitioner or staff specialist exercising rights of private practice, then you will be charged the daily patient contribution plus the daily private benefit. If you have health insurance cover you may sign a “Private Patient Hospital Claim Form” which will assign your private benefit to the hospital. However, if you choose to be a private long stay patient waiting placement in a residential facility, and your health insurance fund will not pay the account, you will be responsible for payment of the account.
When a long stay patient waiting placement in a residential facility is certified as requiring acute care, the patient is treated without charge if public, or if private charged the private bed day charge.
3. If you are not an Australian resident
If you are not an Australian resident and do not come from a country which has signed a reciprocal health care agreement with Australia for the provision of free health care, you will have to pay full bed day costs and other ancillary charges, for example radiology. For further information about the countries that Australia has reciprocal health care agreements with, you can telephone Medicare on 13 20 11. If you are concerned about the costs you may be charged, you can ask the staff looking after you to have the patient services or finance staff discuss the costs with you.
Special payment arrangements
If you are entitled to receive compensation
When you are being admitted to hospital, staff will ask whether your injuries or illness is related to a work accident, motor vehicle accident or any situation where you may be entitled to, or believe you may be entitled to, claim for payment of the costs of your hospital and medical treatment from other sources. You would then be referred to as a compensable patient.
The following categories are considered compensable:
Motor vehicle accident – Motor Accident Compensation Scheme Interstate third party insurance
Common law recoveries Workers’ Compensation Public liability insurance
If it is determined that you are entitled to the payment of, or have been paid compensation or damages in respect to the injury, illness or disease for which you receive treatment and care, all hospital and professional charges must be met by the party responsible.
In any of the above cases (except Motor Accident Compensation Scheme) you will receive an account from the hospital to send to the appropriate person, company or organisation you are claiming from.
If the claim for compensation, which you make, is eventually unsuccessful you need to advise the Northern Territory Public Hospitals’ patient accounts area. You should write to:
Patient Accounts Department of Health PO Box 40596
CASUARINA NT 0811
Motor Accident Compensation Scheme
Special payment arrangements may also apply where you have been injured in a motor vehicle accident and the Motor Accident Compensation Act may cover you. Patients covered by this Act may be treated either as public or private patients at the cost of the insurer, the Territory Insurance Office (TIO).
Hospital staff are not able to advise you about whether you are, or are not, covered by the Motor Accident Compensation Act, or its equivalent in other states. If you have any queries about motor accident compensation you should contact TIO Motor Accident Compensation on the 24 hour, 7 day telephone number
In any of these special cases, if your claim for compensation is rejected, your original choice to be treated as a public or private patient will be important. If you have elected to be treated by a private medical practitioner or staff specialist exercising rights of private practice, then you will be responsible to pay the account or claim from your health insurance fund for the hospital and medical services which you have received.
Department of Veterans' Affairs Patient
A Veterans' Affairs patient is a recognised veteran or war widow who holds a Repatriation Health Card that covers eligibility for hospital treatment as a private inpatient, according to the following criteria:
• A Gold Card – for all conditions
• A White Card – for specific conditions
Under the Agreement between the Northern Territory Government and the Department of Veterans’
Affairs, only eligible inpatients may be charged for hospital bed charges, professional services, diagnostic services and prostheses. The hospital will send your account direct to Medicare Australia for payment on behalf of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs.
If you intend to claim for your hospital treatment from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, but your claim has not yet been approved, then you should also consider the effect of the claim being rejected.
You should elect at time of admission, that in the event of your claim being rejected, whether you would choose to be a public or private patient.
1300 301 833, then choose 'Option 3'
VII. Complaints and Suggestions
Expressing your opinion and making a complaint or suggestion
You can make suggestions directly to the hospital staff about how the service could be improved and receive a personal response. You have the right to have your concerns raised and considered, specifically you can:
Express your opinion; make suggestions or a complaint to the person caring for you, to the person in charge or to the hospital Executive.
Ask to see staff that help people when they have a problem with the hospital.
Know that hospital staff will take seriously both the good and bad things you tell them.
Have somebody help you with your complaint.
Be told what has been done about your suggestion or complaint.
You can lodge a complaint, suggestion or compliment with the hospital. Hospital switchboards can put you through to someone who can help you to lodge a complaint or make a suggestion.
Hospital switchboard numbers:
Alice Springs Hospital: 8951 7777 Gove District Hospital: 8987 0211 Katherine District Hospital: 8973 9211 Royal Darwin Hospital: 8922 8888 Tennant Creek Hospital: 8962 4399
Or you can make a complaint or suggestion through the website http://www.health.nt.gov.au/index.aspx
Contact the Health and Community Services Complaints Commissioner for advice on how your concerns can be followed up or to have your complaint dealt with if you are unsatisfied with the response received at the hospital level.
The Commissioner
Health and Community Services Complaints Commission GPO Box 4409, DARWIN, NT 0801
Toll Free Phone: 1800 004 474
Office Hours: 8.00 am to 4.30 pm Monday to Friday
