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Patients' Rights
You have legal rights to:
- Observance of the Rights of the Individual
- Medical Treatment and Care
- Adequate Explanation of Your Medical Situation and Self-Determination
Observance of the Rights of the Individual
- Everyone who works in a medical institution has a duty of confidentiality. This applies to all details of the patient's medical condition, as well as to personal, financial and other circumstances. At the request of the patient, members of staff may be released from this duty of confidentiality.
- Unless an explicit declaration to the contrary is made to the doctors, organs may be removed from deceased persons for transplantation, to save the lives of patients in need of this treatment (further information on Organ Donation).
- At your request, pastoral care is facilitated.
- Your privacy must be ensured even in multi-bed rooms (for example by using curtains and partitions).
- Inpatient facilities for children must be adapted as well as possible to their needs. The dignity of terminally ill and dying patients must be ensured, as must the access of dying patients to next of kin or other people they trust, at all times irrespective of visiting hours.
- If a patient is unable to care for him- or herself after discharge, or if it is not certain that his or her relatives can provide adequate care, the social services must be given sufficient notice of the impending discharge.
The Right to Medical Treatment and Care
- For access to medical treatment and care, the state of your health is the definitive criterion. As long as it is medically necessary, you will be provided with inpatient care, including medical treatment, nursing care and accommodation including meals.
- Necessary first aid may not be refused to anyone in a public hospital.
- Emergency patients must always be admitted. If no bed is available in the class for which you are insured, you will automatically be accommodated in a higher class, without additional charges, until a place in the standard class becomes available.
- Mothers (accompanying persons) and infants should be coadmitted to hospital. In other cases the coadmission of accompanying persons is subject to capacity.
- Medical examinations and treatments in hospitals must be performed exclusively according to the recognized principles and methods of medical science.
- As a patient, you have a right to considerate and caring treatment.
- At your request, you may receive support from staff trained in health psychology.
- The state of health of every patient must be determined and documented before discharge.
- Should you so wish, you may be discharged prematurely, provided you sign a declaration.
Your Right to Adequate Explanation of Your Medical Situation and to Self-Determination
Responsibilities
Please note your Responsibilities carefully, so that you and your fellow patients can enjoy as fast a recovery as possible.
What to Do When Your Rights as A Patient Are Not Fully Observed
If you feel your rights have been neglected or infringed, you can submit a suggestion or a Complaint.
