Patient's Rights Charter in Iran
,
Abstract
Given the importance of patient's rights in healthcare, special attention has been given to the concept of patient's rights by the Ministry of Health and Medical Education in Iran. Iranian patient's rights charter has been compiled with a novel and comprehensive approach. This charter aims to elucidate rights of recipients of health services as well as observing ethical standards in medicine. This paper presents the Iranian patient's rights charter. Based on a study done from 2007 to 2009, the charter has been finalized through an extensive consultation involving all stakeholders, patients, physicians, nurses, lawyers, patient associations and health policy makers. The developed charter was adopted by the Ministry of Health in December 2009. Iranian patient's rights charter has been formulated in the framework of 5 chapters and 37 articles including vision and an explanatory note. The five chapters concern right to receiving appropriate services, right to access desired and enough information, right to choose and decide freely about receiving healthcare, right to privacy and confidentiality, and finally right to access an efficient system of dealing with complaints which have been explained in 14, 9, 7, 4 and 3 articles, respectively. The paper concludes that, adopting the patient's rights charter is a valuable measure to meet patient's rights; however, a serious challenge is how to implement and acculturate observing patient's rights in practice in our healthcare system in Iran.
Hippocratic Oath. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath (accessed in Feb. 2014).
Post SG (ed). Encyclopedia of Bioethics. 3rd edition. New York: Thomson Gale 2004;P. 2655-6.
Larijani B. Pezeshk va molahezate akhlaghi [Health care professional and ethical issues] (In Farsi). First edition. Tehran: Baraye–farda Pub 2004;P. 9.
Cohen J, Ezer T. Human rights in patient care: A theoretical and practical framework. Health and Human Rights 2013; 15:2.
Emami razavi S.H, Standardhaye etebarbakhshi bimarestan dar Iran [Hospital Accreditation Standards in Iran] (In Farsi). Tehran: Seda Pub 2011; P. 21.
Joint Commission International Accreditation Standards for Hospitals, 5th Edition, 2014, http://store.jointcommissioninternational.org/assets/1/14/J CIH14_Sample_Pages.pdf (accessed in Feb. 2014).
Constitution of Islamic Republic of Iran, article 29, 1980. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran (accessed in Feb. 2014)
Zahedi F, Emami Razavi SH, Larijani B. A two-decade Review of Medical Ethics in Iran, Iranian J Public Health 2009;38(Suppl. 1):40-46.
Rangraz jeddi F, A study on the attitude of physicians and nurses of Kashan Hospitals about the charter of patients’ right. 2003, KAUMS Journal (FEYZ) 2006;10(1):62-71.
Parsapoor A, Mohammad K, Malek afzali H, et al. Observance of Patient’s Rights: A Survey on the Views of Patients, Nurses, and Physicians. J Med Ethics Hist Med 2012; 5:5.
Parsapoor A, Mohammad K, Malek afzali H, et al. Necessity of Observing Patient’s Rights: A Survey on the Attitudes of Patients, Nurses, and Physicians. J Med Ethics Hist Med 2012; 5:2.
Kuzu A, Erqin A, Zencir M. Patients awareness of their rights in a developing country. Public Health 2006; 120(4). pp; 290-6.
| Files | ||
| Issue | Vol 52, No 1 (2014) | |
| Section | Original Article(s) | |
| Keywords | ||
| Patient's rights Medical ethics Iranian patient’s rights charter | ||
| Rights and permissions | |
|
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. |
