earticle

영어

The increase of the aging population has caused problems to those people who don't have ability to manage their own affairs due to an il lness such as dementia. To solve many issues related to property ma nagement and protection of human rights, the proposed amendment to the Civil Act which will cover adult guardianship was declared in Se ptember 2009. Afterwards, as the Civil Act was amended in March 7, 2011 as Act number 10429, the existing system of incompetency and quasi-incompetency was abolished and instead Adult Guardianship System has been introduced, being scheduled to be in force on July 1, 2013. With regard to medical treatments, not only stoppage of treatments to a patient, but also all medical activities by themselves may cause health care hazards. As the worst result such as loss of life may be caused seriously, consents to those activities are also regarded as im portant issue. One of the most challenging issues in the adult guardianship of the amended civil act is whether or not duties of adult guardians set forth in Article 947-2 of the Civil Act include consents to medical activities to their guardianees. Considering the fact that in many cases long-term disease or disability of a guardianee leads to the decision on adult gu ardianship, it is a very important concern for anyone to secure medic al treatments to a guardianee in the adult guardianship. As the adult guardianship system imposes the obligation to care the guardianee on the adult guardian, it is an important duty of the guardian to make me dical treatment and hospitalization arrangements in consideration of the changes in health status of the guardianee. However, in the event that medical treatments such as surgery are required to a guardianee who doesn't have ability to consent, who is supposed to decide on it? Acc ordingly, it is an important issue for an adult guardian to have the aut hority to consent to medical treatments. This study claims to specify the scope of consent in more details in the civil act because neither Article 947-2 of the amended civil act n or the medical treatment act fails to specify the authority to consent given to adult guardians. This study aims to examine and clarify the authority of adult guardian to consent to medical activities.