Today, April 18 is the European Patient Rights Day and we want to remind you that despite the State of Alarm decreed because of the pandemic patients continue to keep their rights intact. By this we mean that if you have a son or daughter admitted to a hospital, their rights are intact, whether or not they are admitted because of COVID 19.
Another thing is the services and benefits that you have in the Health Centers and that may have been affected, but let's say that some of these rights are based on being a user of the Healthcare. We are all aware of the exceptionality in which we live, but we want to remind you of the rights of patients, and also what are the rights of the hospitalized child.
Rights of the hospitalized child
If at this time of health chaos you have a hospitalized child, you should know that their rights, guaranteed in the European Charter of Rights of Hospitalized Children are still intact.
Some of these rights are, for example, that day hospitalization do not pose an economic burden additional to the parents, that they or the person who substitutes them legally. That the parents can spend as much time as possible during your stay in the hospital. Parents are not passive bystanders, but active elements of hospital life.
The child has the right to receive information about his disease, his treatment and its prospects, and the doctor is obliged to give it in the terms in which it is understandable. This point is especially sensitive in many families, especially in the case of adolescents. The niño has the right to refuse (by the mouth of their parents) as research subjects and to refuse any care or examination whose primary purpose is educational or informational and not therapeutic.
Remember that during your hospitalization you have right to be with other children, to continue their school training, and to benefit from the teachings of the teachers and the didactic material available at the hospital. And of course, and it is not a minor issue to access to toys, books, audiovisual material appropriate to their age.
Basic rights of the patient
On the European Patient Rights Day we want to remind you that these are basically:
- Right to data insights (health, epidemiological, healthcare ...).
- Right of access and formation of a clinic history. Health centers must have a procedure to guarantee the right of access to their own medical records. It can be accessed electronically throughout Spain. At the same time, all privacy and intimacy requirements must be guaranteed and met.
- The right to decide on your health. It is the parents who decide in the case of minors. Parents can request the voluntary discharge of their children.
- Right to your will is respected. Any person of legal age, capable and free, can state in advance the health care and treatment they wish to receive. In the case of minors, it is the parents or legal guardians who must leave these instructions in writing.
- The right to claim. There is the figure of the Patient Defender.
Right to information
The right to health and epidemiological information it belongs to anyone, patient or not. At this time, this right is especially interesting. The information that is disseminated must be done in true, understandable terms and appropriate to the needs of the patient.
In the case of minors this information has to be given to parents, expressly or tacitly. It must be taken into account that any action that affects health requires consent, it is what is usually known as informed consent and signed by both parents. At the same time, the father, the mother or both, can freely revoke, in writing, their consent or express their desire not to be informed.
El right to confidentiality is limited in some cases. But the patient's personal data is never given, but when public health is at stake, for example, in this case of COVID19, when it comes to curbing certain infectious-contagious diseases, these are mandatory.