OBSERVING PATIENTS' RIGHTS, BETWEEN PERCEPTION AND REALITY

Increasingly, both at the European level and internationally, the idea has gained ground that an investment in health actually represents an investment in a country's economic prosperity. (The Council of the European Union, 2006). With all the financial and legal efforts registered in this field, not only in Romania, but at an international level as well, criticism is on the increase. As a consequence of the degradation of the population's health, of the rise in healthcare costs, of a more quality-based medical procedure, as well as a consequence of the competition brought forth by the private practices to the public healthcare services, the patient is progressively treated as a client, whose rights are and must be respected and whose satisfaction must be monitored; the numerous reports and research studies carried out within the European Commission also stand proof of this fact. (Patient Safety and Quality of Care, 2014; Patients' rights in the EU, 2014; Patient Safety in the EU: 2014, etc.) Following the methodology of the pilot study, the purpose of the present paper is to highlight the extent to which the patients' rights are known and observed in Romania; our analysis of the specialized literature, of the reports and of the current national and European legislation has enabled us to gather information and to clarify the theoretical concepts we use.