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Advancing Human Rights in Patient Care: Practitioner Guides

First page of PDF with filename: Advancing-Human-Rights-in-Patient-Care-20130516.pdf
  • Date
  • May 2013
  • Author
  • Iain Byrne & Jonathan Cohen

Health systems can too often be places of punishment, coercion, and violations of basic rights—rather than places of treatment and care. In many cases, existing laws and tools that provide remedies are not adequately used to protect rights.

This Practitioner Guide series presents practical how-to manuals for lawyers interested in taking cases around human rights in patient care. The manuals examine patient and provider rights and responsibilities, as well as procedures for protection through both the formal court system and alternative mechanisms in 10 countries.

Each Practitioner Guide is country-specific, supplementing coverage of the international and regional framework with national standards and procedures in the following:

  • Armenia
  • Georgia
  • Kazakhstan
  • Kyrgyzstan
  • Macedonia
  • Moldova (forthcoming)
  • Romania
  • Russia (forthcoming)
  • Serbia
  • Ukraine

This series is the first to systematically examine the application of constitutional, civil, and criminal laws; categorize them by right; and provide examples and practical tips. As such, the guides are useful for medical professionals, public health mangers, Ministries of Health and Justice personnel, patient advocacy groups, and patients themselves.

Advancing Human Rights in Patient Care: The Law in Seven Transitional Countries is a compendium that supplements the practitioner guides. It provides the first comparative overview of legal norms, practice cannons, and procedures for addressing rights in health care in Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Russia, and Ukraine.

A Legal Fellow in Human Rights in each country is undertaking the updating of each guide and building the field of human rights in patient care through trainings and the development of materials, networks, and jurisprudence. Fellows are recent law graduates based at a local organization with expertise and an interest in expanding work in law, human rights, and patient care. To learn more about the fellowships, please visit health-rights.org.

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