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The Ministry of Health initiated, at the request of the Ombudsman, steps to correct the legislative loopholes regarding access to the medical documents of the relatives of a patient who died in a hospital, according to a press release sent on Thursday by the Ombudsman's office, told Agerpres.
According to the source, the Ombudsman's office in central Brasov was notified regarding a case from Covasna county, of a woman who was refused the communication of data, respectively the release of medical documents, in the absence of the explicit consent expressed by her son, victim of a traffic accident during the past year.
"The petitioner's son was involved in an accident, on the outskirts of the Micfalau commune, Covasna county, as a result of which he arrived at the hospital in a serious condition, later, on the same day, dying. This is a patient who was absolutely unable to express any option regarding the designation of a person who will have full access to his data related to diagnosis, treatment, etc. Law No. 46/2003 on the rights of the patient provides in articles 21-22 that all information regarding the patient's condition, the results of the investigations, diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, personal data are confidential, even after the patient's death, with the exception of the case where the patient gives explicit consent or if the law expressly requires it. (...) The provisions of Law No. 46/2003 do not regulate the situation in which, upon hospitalization or in the course of being provided medical services, during which he died, the patient was in the absolute impossibility of expressing his agreement regarding to the communication of personal medical data," the Ombudsman stated.
As such, the institution requested the Minister of Health "to order the taking of the legal measures required to modify the existing legal framework, by inserting an exception from the provisions of art. 22 of Law no. 46/2003, an exception that would regulate the situation in which a patient arrives at the health facility in a state of absolute impossibility to express his/her consent/agreement regarding the designation of a person who will have full access, both during his/her life and after his/her death, to the confidential data in the observation sheet".
