MEDICAL MALPRACTICE AND LEGAL LIABILITY IN THE RENDERING OF HEALTHCARE SERVICES IN UKRAINE

Abstract

The development of medicine, raising the standards of living and education of the population, along with the increasing level of democratization of society, contribute to the increase of demands on medical practitioners, and the fact that people have legal knowledge, including knowledge related to obtaining medical services, causes an increase in the number of cases of holding medical practitioners liable for their offences. Therefore, this research paper deals with the explanation of human rights, as well as the description of a person's right to health care in the context of the general rights stipulated by the Constitution. In addition, the degree of coverage of the chosen topic of research by domestic scholars and the necessity of its further consideration was determined. At the same time, an insight into the history is provided, where the first cases of holding doctors liable are stated and their punishment is determined. The next step in the study is to determine the nature of legal liability and adapt general definition to the needs of the medical industry. The paper also describes the components of the concepts of medical staff, and identifies two areas of their liability: legal and moral. Continuing the line of research, the types of legal liability are considered: criminal, civil law and administrative, as well as moral liability in the form of disciplinary liability. The peculiarities of holding criminally liable are outlined, the structure of crimes which are committed under this category, the number of criminal cases against medical practitioners initiated in 2019 are analysed, and the possible types of liability for their commission are indicated. In addition, the nature and extent of liability for civil and administrative crimes are revealed, as well as the nature of disciplinary liability and the possibility of holding medical practitioners liable. The prospects of reforming the medical sector in terms of the establishment of medical self-government bodies have been identified, which, among other things provided by the legislation, are planned to be assigned the function of resolving cases of offences in the medical sphere. Based on the results of the study, sound conclusions were drawn.