Abstract
The COVID-19 virus, which first appeared in Wuhan, China in December 2019 and spread quickly to the whole world in a few months, was defined as a pandemic by the World Health Organization on 12 March 2020. This process has inevitably brought along problems in many areas, including health, education, social, economics, law, psychology, politics, and international relations. The pandemic era is a period when we appreciate more than ever how valuable our fundamental rights and freedoms are. Of these rights, the right to health and patient rights are significantly adversely impacted. This chapter will evaluate human rights, especially patient rights, mostly affected during this pandemic period in Turkey. This chapter further presents that other states are also continuing to experience effects of the pandemic. Both Turkey and other states must be prepared for the patients to properly benefit from the healthcare system in future outbreaks and pandemics. Otherwise, human and patient rights will continue to suffer.
TopBackground
It is not the first time that the world has gone through infectious diseases and epidemics. Humanity has faced and fought against a wide variety of epidemics in the history of the world. First of all, it is necessary to focus on the definitions of terms outbreak, epidemic, and pandemic, which can often be confused.
An outbreak is an infectious disease that is observed much more frequently than the normally expected frequency in a particular society (Hacımustafaoglu, 2018). According to the Turkish Language Institution, the definition of the outbreak is “the spread of one disease or another condition and the transmission to many people at once” (sozluk.gov.tr).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Fundamental Rights and Freedoms: Fundamental rights and freedoms are the basic rights and freedoms that belong to everyone no matter where they are born, where they live, and what they believe in.
Right to Health: The right to health is one of a set of internationally agreed human rights standards and is inseparable or “indivisible” from these rights. Entitlements include the right to a system of health protection that gives everyone an equal opportunity to enjoy the highest attainable level of health.
Patients’ Rights: Patients’ rights are the basic rules and legal rights of conduct between patients and medical caregivers as well as the institutions and people that support them.
Right to Privacy: The right not to have one's personal matters disclosed or publicized and the right to be left alone. The right against undue government intrusion into fundamental personal issues and decisions.
Confinement: A situation of being held in a certain place; not being able to move freely.
COVID-19 Pandemic: Also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).
Public Health: The government system providing health needs services for all the people of a country or a region.
Restrictive Regulations: Regulations that prevent people from doing what they want to do, or from moving freely.