Medical Error as a Reason for Legal Responsibility in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

Abstract

Taking the development of Maslow’s five-level model of human needs which defines physiological and security needs as the most basic, in 1943, as a starting point, the author approaches the topic of exercising the right to health care in the first decades of development of this idea. The paper focuses on the space and time of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), given the conditions that enable the emergence of a model of health care in which a certain amount of health care is guaranteed to every citizen. After defining the nature of the relationship between the doctor and patient, with a focus on the legal codification of the ethical duties of physicians of the time, the paper considers the issue of legal responsibility of physicians for medical error. We first define the concept and content of the concept of medical error, while examining the general conditions of liability for medical error. The author agrees with the view that the rules on liability for medical error must have a certain degree of rigour, in order to encourage doctors to behave professionally. However, they must not be hindered in their professional work by excessive fear of mistakes, or the legal consequences that arise from them.