[The sick child and medical secrecy in Africa : from the influence of tradition to respect for legal norms]

Abstract

With the evolution of new technologies, ensuring the protection of the patient's rights becomes more and more difficult. The new methods of diagnosis and treatment of the disease although powerful, have finally get throught the patient deep inside his intimacy, requiring a real legal framework in order to preserve medical confidentiality. The apprehension that is made of it depends on the social and cultural realities of the geographical framework in which one can situate oneself. While it is true that in Western societies the legal consecration and the application of medical secrecy has been the subject of numerous jurisprudence, this is not the case in African societies where the notion of secrecy is perceived otherwise. Two realities confront each other : the right to medical confidentiality and the influence of the African tradition in relation to the application of this right. This situation becomes even more complex when it comes to a child, an incapable minor, who must be represented in his decisions, and who is particularly vulnerable to the disease. Its particular status in African tradition necessarily raises questions about the effective application of its right to medical confidentiality. The relationship between the latter and the traditional rules must then be clarified and even revisited by current legal norms, since the sick child, a particularly vulnerable person, is entitled to the protection of his private life by respecting the confidential information that is known Either by the doctor or by the traditional practitioner, in or outside the exercise of their profession.