In the contribution, triggered by the Covid-19 epidemic
in Slovenia, the authors examine the lively relationship between law and
medicine in the case of triage or emergency medicine. With only brief referral to key criminal and civil law challenges, which they leave aside for experts in their respective fields, they try to determine
the boundaries of lawful conduct
of physicians and other
medical professionals by interpreting relevant provisions of Slovenian Health
Services Act, Medical Practitioners Act, and Patients’
Rights Act. The authors focus on hard cases of triage, in which
rejection or postponement of (parti- cular) medical care may lead not only to
severe or irreversible interferences with the right to health, but also to the patient’s death. They do not specifical- ly
address the provisions of the Healthcare and Health Insurance Act as they deem
the sheer mention of the fact that any limitation
of the right to medical services of a compulsorily insured
person may represent
a breach of rights and obligations stipulated within a
social-insurance relationship as sufficient for this debate.
Keywords: triage, epidemic, right to health, right to life, human
dignity.