Article 7:446 Dutch Civil Code, Book 7

Paragraph 1

The medical treatment contract - referred to below in this Division as the treatment contract - is the contract under which a natural person or a legal person, the care provider, undertakes towards another person, the client, in the course of a medical profession or business, to perform acts in the field of medicine directly relating to the person of the client or of a specific third party. The person to whom the acts directly relate is referred to below as the patient.

Paragraph 2

Acts in the field of medicine mean:

1. all procedures - including examination and the giving of advice - directly relating to a person and intended to cure that person of an illness, to prevent that person from developing an illness or to assess that person's state of health, or to provide obstetric assistance to that person;

2. acts other than those referred to in (a), directly relating to a person, which are performed by a physician or dentist in that capacity.

Paragraph 3

The acts referred to in paragraph 1 also include the nursing and care of the patient in that context and otherwise providing, directly for the benefit of the patient, the material conditions under which those acts can be performed.

Paragraph 4

There is no treatment contract where acts are concerned for assessing the state of health of, or for the medical supervision of, a person, performed on the instructions of someone other than that person in connection with the determination of entitlements or obligations, admission to an insurance or facility, or the assessment of suitability for a training programme, an employment relationship or the performance of specific work.