Patient’s Rights in Mental Health: Problems of Residential Care in Serbia

Hajrija Mujovic, PhD, Institute of Social Sciences, Belgrade, Serbia
Abstract: The area of mental health care in Serbia points to all complexity and specialty of this branch of medical practice and the diversity of nursing care in the cases of residential accommodation. Considering the Serbian legislation in this area and the aim to implement the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, it is necessary to make more defined position for patients-users’ rights in the practice of residential services. Most important issues are use of patient’s advanced directives as well as support to the patient’s mental capacity during different way of decision making process. Both aspects of these rights should have a positive attitude and such practice should be further developed in the sense of comparative law and contemporary standards of mental health care. That means in the same time the full affirmation of the Patients’ rights Act. In the course of 2017. a large research was carried out in Serbia on the topic - “Securing health care in line with the human rights standards for persons with disabilities in residential institutions in Serbia”. The project is realized to make further improve: more accessibility to health care services that residents receive, their availability and quality, and more support to the position of residents who are deprived of their legal capacity or that struggle with a label of mental disability and facing social stigmatization.

Medicine and Law (2018) 37:2(2) (Guest Editor: Oren Asman), WAML and The Bioethics and Law Initiative, Tel Aviv University.