Coronavirus — some legal aspects concerning physician’s dilemmas

Abstract

In the age of pandemic, health services face even more often tragic and irreconcilable dilemmas. A physician is obliged to provide medical procedure whenever a delay in providing it could cause a risk of loss of life, serious injury or health disorder, and in every other urgent case. However, each medical intervention, although necessary and urgent, may be risky for a patient in the age of pandemic, as a doctor may be potentially infected by SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2). While it is widely known medical staff is more likely to be exposed to become a source of infection, the risk related to each medical procedure becomes inevitable. The physicians face a serious dilemma as they are aware they might be infected, not having any symptoms or pending the test results while at the same time the necessity to perform medical procedure might occur live-saving. It seems a physician cannot prematurely resign from medical assistance with reference to a potential infection risk. However, the risk has to be reasonably estimated and responsibly reduced. If the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection is high enough to exceed potential advantages of the medical intervention, this intervention might occur unjustified. It might not apply to super urgent lifesaving situations in which failure to provide treatment may lead to patient’s death. It is necessary to minimize the risk to achievable level in order to avoid infection.