ABSTRACT
This chapter presents Reshma Valliappan's story. Reshma's story illustrates the discriminatory and prejudicial health-care services and treatment that persons regarded as lacking capacity are subject to as they navigate a health-care system that is more intent on reinforcing dynamics of power than listening and attending to the health needs of the person with a disability. An important objective in the process of obtaining consent is the elimination of conditions that would vitiate valid consent, which include the threat of coercion or force on the decision. The process of obtaining valid consent requires active communication between the parties, and the individual who proposes to administer the treatment must provide all the necessary information about the treatment in a manner that is accessible to the patient – this includes offering a range of meaningful choices. Reshma recommends that mental-health actors translate the care they provide in a manner that is meaningful and accessible to the individual with the disability.
