The rights of patients | CLINICAL CENTRE

Act CLIV of 1997 on Healthcare stipulates the rights and obligations of patients:

Right to healthcare

• Each patient shall have the right to receive appropriate, continuous healthcare justified by their health condition and choose an attending physician freely with the consent of the selected physician.

Right to human dignity

• While receiving healthcare services, the human dignity and constitutional rights of the patients shall be respected.

Right to have contact

• Visitation right: such right may be exercised at the times specified in the hospital rules and regulations and by respecting the rights of other patients.

Prohibition on providing information

• The patient shall have the right to prohibit the hospital from giving information to anyone about the provision of therapy and any related information about the therapy itself.
• Right to stay next to a patient: in cases defined by the Act on Healthcare, the patients shall have the right to having their personal representative, relative or a person designated by them present during their stay at the hospital.

Free exercise of religion

• The patients shall have the right to freely exercise their religion at the healthcare institution and keep contact with a clergyman considered appropriate by them.

Right to leave the hospital

• If possible, the patients shall be notified 24 hours in advance about their release from the hospital.

Right to voluntarily leave the hospital

• Contrary to the recommendation of the attending physician, the patients may decide at their own responsibility to voluntarily leave the hospital. However, by doing so, they shall not endanger the life or bodily integrity of others. The fact of the voluntary leaving of the hospital shall be recorded in the documentation of the patient.

Right to information

• The patients shall have the right to get detailed information from the attending physician regarding the healthcare service received in a form understandable by them.

Right to self-determination

• Under their right to self-determination, the patients shall be free to decide whether to use medical care or not and within the framework of such medical care, which interventions they accept or reject.
• The exercising of the right to self-determination based on sufficient notification can take place orally, in writing or even implicitly.
• In the case of a patient with no disposing capacity or limited disposing capacity, within the scope determined by law, the relatives of the patient living or not living in the same household shall be entitled to exercise the right to self-determination exclusively regarding the surgical or the diagnostic procedures considered as surgical interventions.

Right to refusing healthcare services

• Based on the stipulations of the Act on Healthcare, a patient of full disposing capacity shall be free to refuse healthcare, if such refusal does not endanger the lives or physical integrity of others.
• The patients shall have the right to refuse life-supporting or life-saving interventions, if such patients suffer from a serious illness which according to the current state of medical science would lead to death within a short period of time or is incurable. This right to refusal shall become valid only if such statement is accepted at the hospital by a medical committee of three members, as stipulated by law.

Right to become acquainted with medical records

• The patients shall be entitled to become acquainted with data in their medical documentation and they may request information about such data. The patients may initiate the amendment or the rectification of the medical documentation, if these data are considered inaccurate or incomplete.
• The medical documentation shall belong to the healthcare provider, while the data therein shall be belong to the patient. The patients shall have the right to have access to their medical data and request a copy thereof in a way and form required by law, at their own expense.

Right to medical confidentiality

• The patients shall be entitled to adequate and confidential treatment of their medical and personal data by healthcare professionals and to the disclosure thereof only to the entitled people determined by law.
• The patients shall also have the right to restrict the scope of people present during their examination and therapy to the people taking part in medical care or therapy or who are allowed by the patient.
• As Kenézy Hospital is a teaching hospital, students may be present during the examination and therapy for educational purposes.