Claude ÉVIN - The Rights of the Patients

Pouvoirs n°89 - Le pouvoir médical - avril 1999 - p.15-30

Two obstacles stand in the way of acknowledging the rights of the patients. On the one hand, these rights are guaranteed in several texts of a different nature ; on the other hand they challenge a certain medical paternalism which is far from having disappeared. However, such rights belong to basic human rights that contribute to preserving the dignity of the person : the right to agree to certain treatments, the right to be informed of one’s health, and the right to be treated with respect and dignity. To these individual rights must be added a number of guarantees that the patient should expect from the health system : access to the treatments required by one’s state of health and assurance about the quality of these treatments. Résumé

Référence électonique : Claude ÉVIN, "The Rights of the Patients", Pouvoirs, revue française d’études constitutionnelles et politiques, n°89, 1999, p.15-3. Consulté le 02-06-2012. URL : http://www.revue-pouvoirs.fr/The-Rights-of-the-Patients.html