Realizacja prawa pacjenta do świadczeń zdrowotnych w czasie pandemii COVID-19

Abstract

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Polish public authorities faced the difficult task of preventing the spread of the coronavirus, providing medical assistance to infected people and securing the health needs of the rest of the population. The measures taken by the public authorities involved the need to introduce numerous restrictions on human and civil liberties and rights, including those of the patient. One of the patient's rights whose realization during the COVID-19 pandemic was hampered and sometimes even impossible is the patient's right to health services. Restrictions on the availability of health services were mainly due to the cancellation of scheduled appointments and procedures, the suspension of patient admissions to some hospital wards and the designation of selected hospital wards or entire hospitals exclusively for patients infected or suspected of being infected with coronavirus. The solution for providing health care services despite the closure of numerous medical facilities was to switch to a system of teleportation as the primary form of performing outpatient treatment. Unfortunately, such a measure did not significantly improve access to health care, especially for the elderly, the deaf and hard of hearing, and often the blind. The patient's right to health care services has been the most frequently violated right for years, and the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated this even more clearly. However, improving this state of affairs requires reforms to the entire health care system, including measures to address staffing, financial and premises problems.