EXTENDING THE SCOPE OF INVASIVE MEDICAL INTERVENTIONS UNDER HUNGARIAN LAW: CONDITIONS AND JUDICIAL PRACTICE
EXTENDING THE SCOPE OF INVASIVE MEDICAL INTERVENTIONS UNDER HUNGARIAN LAW: CONDITIONS AND JUDICIAL PRACTICE

Summary/Abstract: Extending the scope of an invasive medical intervention raises a fundamental question about the limits of the patient’s right to self-determination. Under Hungarian law, medical interventions are, as a rule, subject to the patient’s informed consent. The Health Care Act nevertheless permits, in exceptional circumstances, an intervention already under way to be extended without the patient’s separate and contemporaneous consent. This study examines the statutory conditions under which such an extension may be permissible and how those conditions are interpreted in Hungarian judicial practice. The article argues that such an extension cannot be understood as a general form of medical discretion or as a broad authorisation to depart from the patient’s original consent. Professional necessity, medical expediency, or the technical connection between interventions is not, in itself, sufficient to justify an extension. Rather, the statutory framework recognises a narrowly circumscribed competence to intervene in exceptional situations. On the basis of the relevant case law, the study shows that the permissibility of such extensions is necessarily case-specific and depends on the statutory conditions, the patient’s situation, and the consequences of refraining from the additional intervention

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