Capable Adult Patient’s Right to Decide in Medical Treatment Based on His or Her Religious Beliefs in the Republic of Latvia

Description

Objectives
The aim of the research is to study and analyse the capable adult patient’s right to decide in medical treatment
based on his or her religious beliefs in the Republic of Latvia, through the prism of case analysis, identifying the
legal problems and providing proposals for improving the national legal acts.
Materials and Methods
In the research author analyses national legal acts and scientific literature in the field of medical law. Likewise,
to identify practical examples and problem issues regarding patient’s right to decide in medical treatment based
on his or her religious beliefs in the context of the national legal framework, the author uses general scientific
methods such as theoretical modelling method, analytical method, and deductive and inductive method and
methods of the interpretation of the legal provisions such as grammatical, systematic, historical, and teleological.
Results
By modelling situations where according to national legal acts patient decide in medical treatment based on his
or her religious beliefs, author concluded that the national normative acts in the field of patients’ rights should
be improved.
Conclusions
Considering the results of the research, the author has made following conclusions:
1. Each medical institution must have a plan for the implementation of patients’ rights, and it must contain
guidelines in communication and treatment that would apply to patients with different types of religious
beliefs.
2. Legal acts should be improved to stipulate that the medicals practitioners are obliged to regularly educate
himself in the field of patient rights and professional ethics and deontology.
3. Legal acts should be improved in the field how patients receive and how they provide information in
medical treatment, including decisions and refusals from medical treatment based on their religious
beliefs.
4. Legal acts that determine how the treating person should act if the patient refuses medical treatment
need to be improved.

Period	29 Mar 2023 → 31 Mar 2023
Event title	RSU Research week 2023: PLACES
Event type	Conference
Conference number	3
Organiser	Rīga Stradiņš University
Location	Rīga, LatviaShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International