2024-04-02 06:39:19
If you believe that a health care worker has violated the rules of professional ethics, you can apply to the ethics committee investigating violations of the rules of professional ethics of the health care worker.
Violations of non-criminal or administrative rules will be investigated in this commission composed of independent experts.
The ethics committee of medical workers is an independent body and consists of 7 members working on a public basis. Among the members of the ethics committee are medical workers, lawyers, scientific workers and psychologists. Violations of the rules of ethics of medical workers: medical worker-patient, medical worker-medical worker, medical worker-third person and in the field of public health are subject to investigation by the Ethics Committee.
The Medical Workers’ Ethics Commission was formed in Armenia in July 2023 with the support of the Council of Europe to investigate cases of violations of ethics rules by healthcare professionals.
According to Davit Melik-Nubaryan, public health specialist, director of the Scientific Research Center for Mother and Child Health Protection, the purpose of creating the commission is to fill the vacuum that exists in many cases that are not regulated by the criminal and civil codes.
“Let me give an everyday example: a person went to a medical facility, he was roughed up, that question remains in the air. either a person has to go to court with a claim of degrading his dignity, or from a legal point of view there is a dead end that no one deals with. To manage such situations, the government established a code of ethics derived from the law, which includes both philanthropy, evidence-based medicine, etc. In order to verify the applicability of those rules, an Ethics Commission was created, which is formed by independent persons,” said Melik-Nubaryan in a conversation with Aysor.am.
The commission is new, so there are no statistics on how effective it is. no application has been submitted to the commission yet.
“Perhaps, the problem is that both patients and healthcare workers are not aware, because the ethics rules regulate patient-healthcare worker and health care worker-healthcare worker relationships, that is, a health care worker can apply to the ethics committee if another health care worker is weak towards him. it was a violation of professional ethics,” the specialist noted.
According to Melik-Nubaryan, it is important for people to be aware that they already have a place where they can submit their complaint and the relevant body will examine the application in the prescribed manner and make a decision. “This is important, that means there will be consequences.”
According to Melik-Nubaryan, we should also think about the opposite.
“Unfortunately, that part is open, maybe this question is an action aimed at filling the gap, that, yes, the opposite should be foreseen, that maybe there can be a violation of the rules of ethics by the patient, the problem here is that that if it is possible to apply a measure against the medical worker: reprimand, severe reprimand and suspension of activity, then the question arises: what measure should the ethics commission apply to the patient, the legal moment remains open. This is an important issue,” he said.
The communication of medical workers with patients is also an important issue. it is mandatory for the medical worker to communicate with the patients in Armenian.
“This is a very important question, because it speaks about the quality of medical care, and communication is one of the most important indicators of quality, that is, it is not the patient’s task to learn a language, on the contrary, it is the responsibility of the medical worker to explain the essence of the disease and the situation to the patient in a language accessible to the patient. We have a lot to do here, I can say that the ministry has now made an experimental investment in patient satisfaction, if I’m not mistaken, in 4 medical facilities. One of the points of that inquiry is how understandable is the information provided by the doctor. If the patient does not understand what his illness is, what his treatment is, it can lead him to follow the wrong treatment and, ultimately, the health problem will not be solved or even complicated. This is really an important issue,” added Davit Nubar-Melikyan.
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