Your rights and responsibilities

Your rights

We promise to treat every patient with promptness, dignity and empathy. As a patient at Andrews, you have the right to:

Respect

To be treated with courtesy and dignity, whatever your age, sex, race, religion, disability or ability to pay.

Information

To know who is caring for you, and to have your condition, your treatment and the alternatives explained in words you understand.

Consent

To agree to, or refuse, any test or treatment, and to be told what refusing may mean for your health.

Privacy

To be examined and treated in private, and to have your records kept confidential.

Safety

To receive care in a clean and safe setting, from staff who check your identity before any medicine or procedure.

Comfort

To have your pain assessed and treated.

A second opinion

To ask for another doctor’s view, and to change your consultant.

Costs

To ask for an estimate before planned treatment, and for an explanation of your bill.

Spiritual care

To practise your faith, and to ask for a chaplain or your own minister.

A voice

To raise a concern or make a complaint without it affecting your care.

Your responsibilities

To help us care for you well, we ask you to:

• Give us full and accurate information about your health, your medicines and your allergies.
• Ask when you don’t understand something.
• Follow the treatment plan you’ve agreed to, and tell us if you can’t.
• Treat staff, other patients and visitors with courtesy.
• Keep to the hospital’s guidelines on visiting, dress, noise and smoking. Smoking and alcohol are not allowed anywhere on the grounds.
• Look after your belongings, and leave valuables at home.
• Settle your accounts, or speak to us early if you’re having difficulty.

Your information

Your medical record belongs to your care. We share it only with the people treating you, with your insurer when you ask us to claim on your behalf, and where the law requires it. Jamaica’s Data Protection Act gives you the right to know what information we hold about you and to ask for it to be corrected.

To ask about a copy of your records, call the hospital and ask for Medical Records.

Read our privacy notice

If something isn’t right

1. Tell someone straight away

   Speak to your nurse or ask for the nurse in charge of the unit. Most concerns can be put right on the spot.

2. Ask for a supervisor

   If you’re not satisfied, ask to speak to the department’s supervisor or manager.

3. Write to us

   Use our compliments and concerns form, email info@amhosp.org or call (876) 926-7401.