Can competent patients refuse medical treatment necessary to sustain life?

Courts in subsequent cases have relied on Cobbs v. Grant, supra, to hold that competent patients were entitled to refuse medical treatment necessary to sustain life and that medical care providers would be required to respect the patients' decisions. For example, the court in Bartling, supra, 163 Cal.App.3d 186, 209 Cal.Rptr. 220, observed that, "[i]f the right of the patient to self-determination as to his own medical treatment is to have any meaning at all, it must be paramount to the interests of the patient's hospital and doctors." ( Id. at p. 195, 209 Cal.Rptr. 220.)