In honour of the human rights day 2009

WHAT: round table
WHEN: on Thursday, December 10, 2009, from 2 pm to 4 pm,
WHERE: at the Golden Lecture Hall of the Law Faculty of the University of Ljubljana (Poljanski nasip 2, Ljubljana)

Some individuals, as well as representatives and representatives of various institutions and non-governmental organizations were invited to actively present their views, including:

• Doc. dr. Grega Strban - Assistant Professor at the Department of Labor and Social Law at the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana;
• Prim. Janez Remškar, Ph.D. med., Director General of the Directorate of Health Care, Ministry of Health of the Republic of Slovenia;
• Samo Fakin, dr. med., general director of the Health Insurance Institute of Slovenia;
• Prim. Mojca Senčar, Ph.D. med., - President of the Slovenian Breast Cancer Association Europa Donna;
• Breda Kutin - President of the Slovenian Consumers' Association;
• Dr. Majda Zorec Karlovšek - Patient Rights Representative from Ljubljana;
• Magda Žezlina - ombudsman of patient rights from Maribor.

The conversation and discussion was tied by Tone Dolčič, Deputy Ombudsman.

In the discussion, we wanted to highlight some of the issues that, according to the Ombudsman of the Republic of Slovenia, have a significant impact on the exercise of the right to health care provided by Article 51 of the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia, and their normative regulation requires special sensitivity. In this way, the Ombudsman also wanted to be included in the public debate on changes in health legislation.

In particular, we discussed the following:

1. In 2008, a new Patients' Rights Act was introduced, which regulated in detail a detailed "universal" rights and procedures for their implementation. Where are the boundaries of normative regulation of health rights: are not these rights and procedures too regulated and could the individual content be regulated only by standards or protocols of conduct? To what benefit are the detailed relationships between patients and health staff and where are the disadvantages of such regulation?
2. Who should supervise the exercise of the right to health care? Do we actually need all administrative and professional bodies, all internal organs and state institutions that do not have a sufficiently specific competence? Who should assist an individual in exercising his rights? What can non-governmental organizations do? What could be the possible special guardian of the patient's rights?
3. Who and how is entitled to ensure that health care users are fully informed about all health rights?
4. Are our appeal procedures guaranteed by the rights that are declared? What needs to be changed in appeal procedures: decision-making bodies, ways of dealing with dissatisfaction, shortening deadlines or leaving everything to courts?
5. Where are the limits for supervising health care providers?
6. Where are the limits for monitoring patients?
7. How to ensure faster response or adaptation of all institutions of the health system to changes in society, so that health services will mean "service" to citizens and citizens, not services? How to ensure the declared partnership relationship between patients and healthcare professionals in practice?

We invited all those interested in the above issues (as users or providers) in the healthcare and health insurance system.