Singapore legislation
Section 38
Section 38
Refusal of medical treatment
Where an employee refuses treatment by a health professional or fails to carry out or deliberately disregards the instructions of a health professional for the employee’s treatment, the Commissioner may direct as follows:
where the employee is receiving any periodical payment of compensation for temporary incapacity under section 17 —
that those payments be suspended until the employee undergoes the treatment or complies with those instructions; and (ii)where the Commissioner is satisfied that the duration of the employee’s incapacity has been prolonged by the employee’s refusal, failure or disregard — that those payments also be restricted to such period, calculated from the date of the accident, as the incapacity of the employee might reasonably have been expected to have lasted, had the employee undergone the treatment and complied with those instructions;
where the employee has been assessed to have suffered permanent incapacity or current incapacity and the Commissioner is satisfied that the incapacity has been aggravated by the employee’s refusal, failure or disregard — that compensation be paid to the employee appropriate to such incapacity as the employee might reasonably have been expected to have suffered if the employee had undergone the treatment and complied with those instructions.