In the frames of the roundtable its participants discussed current state of exercising the rights of patients in Ukraine and in the European countries, current problems in the field of judicial protection of patioents' rights in our state, opportunities of international instruments in exercising the rights of patients in Ukraine.
According to the participants of the roundtable, today, despite of the acknowledgement of human life and health as the highest social value, which is enshrined in the Ukrainian Constitution and laws, Ukraine has not yet created proper mechanisms to ensure fundamental rights of patients such as the right to affordable quality and safe medical care.
According to many specialists, the reason for such a state of affairs is first of all the imperfect legal framework in the field in particular absence of special law that would introduce mechanisms to implement and protect consitutional rights of citizens for protection of health and medical assistance. Such standalone laws have been adopted in many countries around the world for instance in: Ireland in 1997, Spain in 1998, Denmark in 1999, Lithuania in 1996, Belgium in 2002, France in 2002 and Argentina in 2009.
Besides the participants of the roundtable paid attention to the absence of proper state legal and informational support of the patients, as well as absence of cooperation between governmental authorities and non-government organizations in this field.
According to Deputy Chairperson of the Committee Iryna Sysoenko, at present one of the optimal ways to improve the system of protection of patients' rights in Ukraine would be the establishment of special ethical and legal committees under the Health Ministry of Ukraine and regional departments of health care. Such committees should be formed of highly professional employees such as scientists and skilled representatives of the medical and patient society to ensure independence and objectiveness of committees' activity.
At the end of the roundtable its participants decided to elaborate a resolution containing recommendations to the state bodies and a call on patient and human rights non-government organizations to intensify the work on the revelation of facts of violation of patients' rights and immediate information of state bodies about such violations.