This article deals with the protection of the right of the civilian population and medical workers to health. The issue of rights violations arises in connection with the armed conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, which has been ongoing since 2014. On 24 February 2022, its second phase began, which has been characterised by a large-scale offensive by the Russian army. The hostilities are still ongoing, and some areas are temporarily occupied. The aim of the present paper is to reveal the essence of the main international legal, and national means of protecting the right to health in a period of armed conflict. Methods. A combination of general scientific and special scientific approaches was used, as well as a number of methods, namely: dialectical, comparative, analytical, synthetic, and complex methods and the method of generalisation. The results of the study have proved that the existing system of regulatory and institutional means of protection of human rights to health, both at the international and national level, is not able to do this successfully. Conclusions. The right to health in the current period of the armed conflict is limited legally and forcibly for those who stay in the rear by the state on whose territory the armed conflict continues. It is illegal when one of the parties to the conflict violates IHL norms. Despite the normative means of ensuring and protecting the right to health and a wide range of institutional protections established by the parties to the armed conflict – Ukraine and the Russian Federation – the existing system is unable to protect the right of civilians to health. First of all, this is due to the Russian Federation’s violation of the established IHL rules. At the same time, the lack of a quick and effective protection mechanism leads to the fact that civilians, and sometimes medical workers, increasingly feel defenceless against aggressors. Therefore, it seems that the world community should review the existing approaches and establish more effective means of protecting human rights, including the right to health.

The article is devoted to the coverage of one of the most pressing problems of civil law, which is bringing to civil liability of medical workers in cases where they are obliged to compensate for material and moral damage caused to patients by non-performance or improper performance of their professional duties. The article analyzes the types of civil liability and briefly describes the peculiarities of bringing medical workers to them. The cases of lawsuits considered in civil proceedings, in which the defendant was a medical institution or a medical worker, published in the Unified State Register of Court Decisions for the period from January 01, 2021 to December 25, 2022, were studied. It is proved that in practice it is almost impossible for a patient to bring a healthcare professional to civil liability in civil proceedings. Thus, out of 17 cases published in the USRCD during the period from January 01, 2021 to December 25, 2022, which dealt with bringing doctors or other healthcare workers to civil liability, only in 1 case the court fully satisfied the plaintiff's claims, in 2 more - partially, while in the remaining 15 cases the court dismissed the plaintiff's claims in full. Such a small number of satisfied claims of plaintiffs (patients) is due to the fact that in civil proceedings the proof of the vast majority of the circumstances of the case is entrusted to the plaintiff. Since this information requires special knowledge in the field of medicine, the plaintiff himself needs to initiate the quality control of the provided medical care and request the relevant expertise, which creates significant difficulties in practice. The analysis of court decisions made it possible to identify the grounds for contractual civil liability for a medical institution or a doctor, as well as cases in which the court satisfied the plaintiff's claims or refused to do so. The cases of bringing a medical professional to tort liability were also considered and the reasons for the fact that in practice it is quite difficult for plaintiffs to prove the tort in the conduct of a medical professional were identified. It is substantiated that for proper protection of the patient's rights in practice in civil proceedings it is advisable: a) to supplement the current Civil Code of Ukraine with provisions that would regulate the contract for the provision of medical services; b) to create a separate body in the system of state bodies, which should be subordinate to the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, which would control the quality of medical care in cases of harm to the patient's health.

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