Section 2:
consolidated text (as amended). juris shows the text as it was consolidated; it does not confirm that this is the law in force today.
2. (a) Death shall be diagnosed by at least 2 medical practitioners not below
the status of specialists.
(b) One of the medical practitioners shall preferably be the one who was in
charge of the patient and the other one, as far as practicable, a neuro-surgeon,
neurologist, physician or an anaesthetist.
(c) Each medical practitioner shall make his diagnosis independently of the
other after ensuring that the preconditions, as stipulated in the Act, have been
met.
(d) Each medical practitioner shall record the result of his examinations and
diagnosis separately and independently of each other.
(e) Test to ascertain brain death in a patient shall be performed twice before
the pronouncement of death.
(f) A patient shall be presumed to be alive unless and until it is conclusively
established that the patient is brain-dead.
(g) The time of death shall not be the time at which artificial ventilation has
been withdrawn or when the heart-beat ceases, but shall be the time at which
the patient has been conclusively certified as brain-dead.
(h) A diagnosis of brain death shall normally not be considered until the expiry of at least 6 hours after the onset of a coma, or, where a cardiac arrest is
the cause of the coma, until 24 hours after the circulation has been restored.
H12 – 11 [Issue 1]