Keepin touch

Whether you have a question, comment, suggestion or any problem in the purview of the government, send us your message and we will try to respond as soon as possible. If your problem is not in our purview, we will forward your message to the relevant institution.

The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Patients' rights pillar of health care

Belgrade, 2 July 2007

Serbian Minister of Health Tomica Milosavljevic said today that patients' rights are one of the basic human rights and that they should be one of the pillars of health care.

Tomica Milosavljevic

Author: Tanjug

Opening the first symposium on the protection of patients' rights which is held with the aim of improving protection of patients' rights within the system of health care, Milosavljevic explained that the patient, among other things, has the right to availability of health care and information about it.

The Minister said that other patients' rights are free choice of a doctor, access to their medical documentation, privacy and confidentiality of information on their illness and compensation for damages.

He said that every patient, first of all, has the right to availability of medical care, that is, to equal access to health services regardless of their financial possibilities, place of residence or the type of disease.

The Minister said that patients' rights are outlined in the Law on health care and the Law on health insurance.

Assistant Minister of Health Snezana Simic said that insistence on patients' rights, among other things, should increase patients' confidence in the doctor and guarantee the reputation of medical profession.

She specified that the basic patients' right is the right to complaint, but that there are also some rights that are yet to be regulated by special laws, such as the right to artificial insemination, genetic intervention, sex change and prenatal diagnosis.

Advisor to the Minister of Health for protection of patients' rights Maja Ivetic said that violation of patients' rights and ethical responsibility may cause health workers to be disciplined.

According to her, the protector of patients' rights must evaluate objectively if a patient's complaint is well-grounded and has no obligation to act upon anonymous complaints.

She said that a clearly visible notification on the existence of a protector of patients' rights should be put in all departments of health institutions and recalled that a one-month campaign of the Ministry of Health "You Have the Right" is underway, which aims to inform the public on patients' rights.