Study On Application Of Consumer Protection Law On The Hospital-patient Relationship

With the advancement of our country's rule-of-law process and the continuous social development, the medical service quality the patients demand are getting higher and higher, the hospital-patient relationship is gradually transforming from an"active-passive"pattern or a"instruction-cooperation"pattern towards a"co-participation"one; also with the popularization of medical knowledge and people's raising awareness of rights, the patients, who are equal in law with the medical institutions, begin to pay more attention to the implementation of their various rights in the course of medical service, and begin to look actively to law for help when their rights are infringed by medical institutions. When the hospital-patient relationship can not turn into that of right and duty by means of legal regulation, the legal responsibility is full of uncertainties, which are manifested in the form of endless medical disputes and even frequent happening of vicious incidents. How to correctly understand and properly handle the hospital-patient relationship has become a focus of people's concern, it is also an issue forbidden avoiding by law, the goal of which is social justice and harmony. And the most heated argument is whether the consumer protection law is applicable to the hospital-patient relationship. The author of this very paper holds an affirmative attitude towards this issue, and has made an initial research on the reasons for the consumer protection law's applicability to the hospital-patient relationship, the values of the applicability, the principles to be followed in applying the law as well as the specific ways to apply the law.Chapter One explores whether the consumer protection law is applicable to the hospital-patient relationship. What should be identified are the natures of the consumer protection law and the hospital-patient relationship. This very paper firstly clarifies the regulating objects and definition of the consumer protection law, and through the explanation of ternary structure theory of the modern social legal system, identifies the social law property of the consumer protection law. And the next, after arguing that the patients have the characteristics of consumers and the medical institutions have those of proprietors, and on the basis of differentiating and analyzing various opposing views, the author reveals the hospital-patient relationships'gradually taking on the characteristic of consumption relationship in current stage, by means of explaining the transformation tendency of the hospital-patient relationship, the regulating scope of the consumer protection law, the gradual acceptance by society of regulating the hospital-patient relationship with the consumer protection law and the social demand in doing so.In Chapter Two, on the basis of addressing the safety value, the order value and efficiency value of the consumer protection law, in combination with the identities of the medical sector, the author argues that applying the consumer protection law to the hospital-patient relationship can fulfill the law's value, i.e. the application of the law in this sector is in favor of protecting the patient's safety, maintaining the medical order and improving the medical efficiency. Chapter Three examines the system and basic principles of regulating the hospital-patient relationship with the consumer protection law. In the author's opinion, this system is composed of the following three elements: the basic law of consumer protection, the laws and regulations of medical sector as well as separate legislation on the hospital-patient relationship. With regard to the legislation proposals, the necessity and impendency of a separate legislation are explained and the contents that the law should specify are set forth. Then, based on explaining the basic principles of consumer protection law——the principles of essential equality, favor protection and that of state and social intervention, the author proves the applicability of the above-mentioned principles in regulating the hospital-patient relationship.In Chapter Four, the author argues, corresponding to right and obligation's being the core categories of law, the patient's rights and the obligations of the medical institutions should be systematically and specifically stipulated in the future separate law. In comparison with the legal rights, the guidance of legal obligations on one's behavior is undoubtedly more certain. On account of this, the author discusses emphatically the proprietor obligations of medical institutions. Because of the important role of identification of medical infringing liabilities in medical disputes, the author makes a brief exploration of the attribution principle and composing elements of liability for medical tort, the scope and computation of medical impairment compensation, etc.