2504. Enabling certain persons to consent for certain medical, dental, health and hospital services. 1. Any person who is eighteen years of age or older, or is the parent of a child or has married, may give effective consent for medical, dental, health and hospital services for himself or herself, and the consent of no other person shall be necessary.
2. Any person who has been married or who has borne a child may give effective consent for medical, dental, health and hospital services for his or her child. Any person who has been designated pursuant to title fifteen-A of article five of the general obligations law as a person in parental relation to a child may consent to any medical, dental, health and hospital services for such child for which consent is otherwise required which are not: (a) major medical treatment as defined in subdivision (a) of section 80.03 of the mental hygiene law; (b) electroconvulsive therapy; or (c) the withdrawal or discontinuance of medical treatment which is sustaining life functions.
3. Any person who is pregnant may give effective consent for medical, dental, health and hospital services relating to prenatal care.
4. Medical, dental, health and hospital services may be rendered to persons of any age without the consent of a parent or legal guardian when, in the physician's judgment an emergency exists and the person is in immediate need of medical attention and an attempt to secure consent would result in delay of treatment which would increase the risk to the person's life or health.
5. Where not otherwise already authorized by law to do so, any person in a parental relation to a child as defined in section twenty-one hundred sixty-four of this chapter and, (i) a grandparent, an adult brother or sister, an adult aunt or uncle, any of whom has assumed care of the child and, (ii) an adult who has care of the child and has written authorization to consent from a person in a parental relation to a child as defined in section twenty-one hundred sixty-four of this chapter, may give effective consent for the immunization of a child. However, a person other than one in a parental relation to the child shall not give consent under this subdivision if he or she has reason to believe that a person in parental relation to the child as defined in section twenty-one hundred sixty-four of this chapter objects to the immunization.
6. Anyone who acts in good faith based on the representation by a person that he is eligible to consent pursuant to the terms of this section shall be deemed to have received effective consent.
Last modified: February 3, 2019