Does implicit healthcare rationing impose an unfair legal burden on doctors? A study of Portuguese jurisprudence
Date
2020-06-15
Embargo
Advisor
Coadvisor
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Sage
Language
English
Alternative Title
Abstract
Healthcare rationing is inevitable, never more so than during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Portugal, rationing is largely implicit and relies too much on bedside decisions, made in stressful circumstances, involving ethical dilemmas and being prone to error. This study uses a qualitative approach by exploring the public records of Portuguese courts for malpractice suits between the years of 2008 and 2019 to ascertain whether the damage suffered by patients in these cases could in any part be attributed to a lack of resources. During this research, we found that a large number of lawsuits against doctors and hospitals might have in fact been the unfortunate result of the constraints of implicit prioritization. We concluded that lawyers and judges must be made aware of the impact of implicit rationing decisions on healthcare professionals, who are judged against a professional standard and an inverse onus rule that places on them a heavy burden of proof.
Keywords
Allocative decision in healthcare, Implicit priority setting, Medical malpractice, Explicit priority setting, Bedside rationing
Document Type
Journal article
Publisher Version
Dataset
Citation
Costa, E. D. & Pinho, M. (2020). Does implicit healthcare rationing impose an unfair legal burden on doctors? A study of Portuguese jurisprudence. Medical Law International, 1-27. Disponível no Repositório UPT, http://hdl.handle.net/11328/3114
Identifiers
TID
Designation
Access Type
Open Access