About: Health Care Consent Act (Ontario)

The Health Care Consent Act (HCCA) is an Ontario law that has to do with the capacity to consent to treatment. See also: informed consent. The HCCA states that a person has the right to consent to or refuse treatment if they have mental capacity. In order to have capacity, a person must have the "ability" to understand and appreciate the consequences of the treatment decision. The law says that “a person is capable with respect to a treatment, admission to a care facility or a personal assistance service if the person is able to understand the information that is relevant to making a decision about the treatment, admission or personal assistance service, as the case may be, and able to appreciate the reasonably foreseeable consequences of a decision or lack of decision”.