Available in Russian
Author: Konstantin Sharlovskiy
DOI: 10.21128/1812-7126-2024-1-4-24
Keywords: medical care; medical activities; medical treatment; right to healthcare; right to health; definition of medical care
The purpose of this article is to determine the content of the term “medical care” in subjective constitutional law established by Article 41 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. The necessity to examine this issue arises from the need to define the right to medical care. While industry regulation in the healthcare sector, primarily focused on administering the healthcare system, provides a normative definition of “medical care,” the existing definition is not unequivocal and gives rise to significant gaps and conflicts. These primarily concern determining what constitutes medical care, which claims of citizens regarding medical care are protected by the Constitution, and to what extent these claims are protected. Nevertheless, the common approach in academic discourse and judicial practice identifies the subjective constitutional right to medical care with the administrative powers of citizens established in sectoral legislation. This approach is deemed unacceptable, as it diminishes the significance of subjective constitutional rights and restricts the scope of human rights without adequate justification. Furthermore, it enables the limitation of the subjective constitutional right to medical care without following proper procedure. This article proposes an alternative definition of the term “medical care” from a constitutional law perspective, aimed at distinguishing medical care from other types of medical and non-medical activities. It aims to highlight criteria for classifying a particular activity as medical care, thereby giving independent meaning to this term in constitutional law. For this purpose, it introduces criteria based on the nature and purpose of the activity and its potential harm. According to the author, this definition can be utilized in analyzing the content of the subjective constitutional right to medical care, replacing normative definitions. Consequently, it allows for the separation of a person’s subjective constitutional right to medical care from administrative regulation aimed at managing the healthcare sector.
About the author: Konstantin Sharlovskiy – Partner, Head of Life Sciences Practice at “Pepeliaev Group”, Moscow, Russia.
Citation: Sharlovskiy K. (2024) “Vyzdoravlivat’ otsyuda”: konstitutsionno-pravovoe opredelenie kategorii “meditsinskaya pomoshch’” [“Get well from here”: constitutional and legal definition of “medical care”]. Sravnitel’noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, vol. 33, no. 1, pp. 4–24. (In Russian).
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