Study on the Legislative Evolution of Patients' Rights in China

• Published in: 의생명과학과법, 26(0) pp. 236 - 265
• Main Author: 程雪莲
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 법학연구소 01.12.2021
• Subjects: 법학
• ISSN: 2092-8599

Before modern society, doctors were regarded as the main body of doctor-patient relationship and occupied a dominant position. People often highlighted the rights of doctors, and the rights of patients existed as a spontaneous right. It was not until the 18th century that the rights of patients attracted the attention of the public and patients themselves, and became a self-conscious right. However, “patient” is the starting point of medical behavior, and “Patients' rights” is the basic concept of medical legal relationship. Over the past 70 years since the founding of new China, China's health undertakings have developed continuously and health legislation has been gradually improved. However, the concept of “patient” has not been clearly defined in China's health legislation. In China's health legislation, the two concepts of “patient” and “sick” have been mixed for a long time. In March 2019, the measures for the management of complaints from medical institutions (Order No. 3 of the National Health Commission) defined the concept of patients for the first time, but it was very inaccurate. At the same time, there is no special legislation on Patients' rights in China, and the provisions on Patients' rights are scattered in many legislations. There are some problems, such as uncertain connotation of Patients' rights, inconsistent expression of the same right in health legislation, even conflict with each other, inadequate protection and so on, which are very unfavorable to the protection and relief of Patients' rights, and exacerbate the differences between doctors and patients to a certain extent, it is not conducive to the resolution of medical disputes. By combing the development history of China's health legislation, the author makes full caliber statistics on 145 currently effective health legislation in China, comprehensively analyzes the changes of Patients' rights legislation in the four stages of China's health legislation, analyzes the problems existing in China's Patients' rights legislation, and makes suggestions on improving China's Patients' rights from ordinary patients and special patients, as well as laws, administrative regulations The two legislative levels of departmental rules put forward the idea of perfection. KCI Citation Count: 0