The World Medical Association (WMA) has provisions for the rights of an unconscious patient in the ‘WMA Declaration of Lisbon on the Rights of the Patient’. It states as follows: 

“4. The unconscious patient

1. If the patient is unconscious or otherwise unable to express his/her will, informed consent must be obtained whenever possible, from a legally entitled representative.
2. If a legally entitled representative is not available, but a medical intervention is urgently needed, consent of the patient may be presumed, unless it is obvious and beyond any doubt on the basis of the patients previous firm expression or conviction that he/she would refuse consent to the intervention in that situation.
3. However, physicians should always try to save the life of a patient unconscious due to a suicide attempt.”