Legal Safeguards Of Medical Workers Issues: Results Of Sociological Research

Abstract

The article presents the research of the opinions of a professional group of doctors (N=1041) on topical problems of protecting the rights of medical workers in the exercise of their labor functions associated with the risky nature of medical activities, an increase in legal responsibility, workload and the progressive aggression of patients. The authors used sociological and statistical research methods. The significance of differences between the values was determined using the Student's t-test (p<0.05, t≥2). Recent years have been characterized by a pronounced increase in the number of complaints of patients to medical workers and institutions related to the medical care provision and the onset of various kinds of responsibility of doctors in the implementation of professional activities. The problem of legal insecurity of medical workers are the following: ambiguity of their legal status in the field of labor legislation, vulnerability in the event of adverse outcomes in professional activity, uncertainty of actions in the event of aggression (attacks) by patients. The leading rank places among the influencing factors are the depreciation of the benefits of medical specialists working in hazardous working conditions and aggression of patients. According to doctors' opinion these negative factors can be overcome by toughening the penalty for the use of violence against medical workers performing their duties.