oviedo convention impact for legislation and practices cristina gavrilovici, md, phd romanian...

Oviedo Convention impact for legislation

and practices

Cristina Gavrilovici, MD, PhDRomanian Bioethics Committee

Bratislava, 2009

What does Oviedo Convention represent for romanian legislation?

Law no 17/2001: the ratification of Oviedo Convention for the protection of Human Rights and dignity of the human being with regard to the application of biology and medicine

Chapter II - Consent

• Romanian deontology code (for physicians and nurses) (last revision 30.08.2008)

• Law 46/ 21.01.2003: Romanian patients’ rights law

• Law 487/2002: the law of mental health and protection of people with mental health

Chapter III - Private life and right to information

• Law 677/12.12.2001: the law regarding the protection of persons in relation to personal data and the free circulation of these data

• Law 584/29.10.2002: The law regarding the prevention of HIV/AIDS and protection of AIDS/HIV infected people

• The governmental decision related to compulsory introduction of biometric passports

Chapter IV - Human genome

• No romanian law focused on genetics• Additional protocol over genetic testing is

pending to promulgation

Chapter V - Scientific research

• Law no 206/ 27.05.2004: Romanian research law

• The decision regarding the authorisation of clinical trials (non-interventional)

Chapter VI - Organ and tissue removal from living donors for transplantation

purposes

• Romanian transplantation law – still pending

The merits of romanian medical legislation

• Most if not all medical laws in Romania have an important ethical part (which has been subject to debate…before the bill became a law)

The merits of Oviedo Convention

• The launch for many ethical debate and medical legislation at the european level

• It does not bring a definition of PERSON– It merely uses the terms of “human being”

• “dignity, respect, welfare, interest of the human being”

– When it comes to sensitive issues like Chapter III - Private life and right to information, it uses the term “everyone”, with no clue for what “everyone” include (embryos as well???)

The weakness of Oviedo Convention

Conclusions

• It is easier to write a law than to implement a practice

• There is a big gap between legislation and practice

Conclusions

Conclusions