New South Wales Consolidated Acts

CHILDREN (DETENTION CENTRES) ACT 1987 - SECT 27

27 Medical attention

(1) A detainee must be supplied with such medical attendance, treatment and medicine as in the opinion of a medical officer is necessary for the preservation of the health of the detainee, of other detainees and of any other person.

(2) A medical practitioner (whether a medical officer or not) may carry out medical treatment on a detainee without the detainee’s consent if the Chief Executive Officer, Justice Health is of the opinion, having taken into account the cultural background and religious views of the detainee, that it is necessary to do so in order to save the detainee’s life or to prevent serious damage to the detainee’s health.

(3) Medical treatment carried out on a detainee under this section is, for all purposes, taken to have been carried out with the detainee’s consent.

(4) Nothing in this section relieves a medical practitioner from liability in respect of the carrying out of medical treatment on a detainee, being a liability to which the medical practitioner would have been subject had the treatment been carried out with the detainee’s consent.

(5) If the Chief Executive Officer, Justice Health is not a medical practitioner, the reference to the Chief Executive Officer, Justice Health in subsection (2) is taken to be a reference to a person, designated by the Chief Executive Officer for the purposes of that subsection, who is a medical practitioner.