The (New) Civil Telemedicine Framework: Construction of a Healthy Regulatory Environment for New Telemedicine Practices / O (novo) marco civil da telemedicina: a construção de um ambiente regulatório saudável para as novas práticas telemédicas

O presente trabalho teve como objetivo principal fornecer subsídios para a regulamentação da telemedicina no Brasil. Com o advento da pandemia de covid-19, instrumentos normativos foram elaborados às pressas para regular a oferta de atenção médica a distância, com o uso de tecnologias da informação sincrônicas. Contudo, tanto a Lei da Telemedicina quanto a resolução do Conselho Federal de Medicina n. 2.227/2018 que a seguiu, autorizando o uso da telemedicina, foram omissas em relação às balizas e aos parâmetros que a oferta de serviços telemédicos deveriam seguir. Embora não seja propriamente um fenômeno novo no Brasil, a telemedicina historicamente se deu em um ambiente de forte insegurança jurídica. Esse cenário é deletério tanto para as empresas, que deixam de se capacitar para prestar serviços telemédicos, como para os pacientes, que se veem obrigados a desfrutar desses serviços em um ambiente pouco regulado e potencialmente lesivo. Com base nisso, este artigo elencou pontos sensíveis que merecem atenção do legislador e das partes interessadas para que haja regulamentação da telemedicina, incluindo temas como a relação telemédico-paciente, responsabilidade telemédica e das plataformas, prontuário telemédico eletrônico, entre outros. Essa regulamentação pode proporcionar mais segurança jurídica e clareza regulatória,apontando para a construção de um ambiente regulatório saudável para as novas práticas telemédicas.

The present work seeks to provide subsidies for the regulation of telemedicine in Brazil. With the outbreak of Covid-19, new normative instruments were created in a hurry to regulate the offer remote medical attention, with the use of synchronous information technologies. However, both the Brazilian Law on Telemedicine, and the Brazilian Federal Council of Medicine Regulation that followed it and authorized the use of telemedicine, were silent in relation to the limits and parameters applicable for the offer of telemedicine services. Although telemedicine services are not a new phenomenon in Brazil, they have historically been provided in an environment of strong legal uncertainty. This scenario is detrimental both for the companies that lose the opportunity to invest into capacities to offer these services, and for the patients who are obliged to use telemedicine services in a lightly regulated and potentially damaging regulatory environment. Based on these considerations, we present certain sensitive points that deserve further attention from legislators and main stakeholders concerning the regulation of telemedicine, including themes such as telephysician-patient relations, telephysician responsibility, electronic medical records, among others. The regulation of these topics can increase legal certainty and regulatory clarity and step into the Direction of the construction of a healthy regulatory environment for these new telemedicine practices.

Vaccinating Children: The COVID-19 Family Law Jurisprudence.

Australian, New Zealand, English and Canadian courts have made a number of orders, often in the context of parenting disputes, requiring children to be vaccinated. Complementary therapy options have generally not been permitted as an alternative to mainstream vaccination. Debates about parental entitlements to make decisions about such matters have taken place in the context of contested family law litigation during the COVID-19 era. However, by contrast with Ontario Superior Court of Justice decisions in 2022, a series of Australian decisions, including the judgment of Sutherland CJ in Clay & Dallas [2022] FCWA 18, have developed the law further, having regard to both the capacity of a minor to consent to vaccination and reviewing a variety of factors going to children's best interests at different junctures during the pandemic, finding it generally to be in the best interests of children to receive COVID-19 vaccinations. This is likely to flow back into curial decision-making about vaccinations more broadly, as well as cognate matters.

Anti-Epidemic Emergency Regimes under Polish Law in Comparative, Historical and Jurisprudential Perspective.

The SARS-CoV-2 crisis of 2020 triggered a number of unprecedented reactions of European states, in particular in the form of either constitutional emergency measures or statutory anti-epidemic emergency measures. Poland chose to deal with the crisis by delegating powers to the executive by ordinary legislative means and declared a nationwide state of epidemic emergency on 13 March 2020 and a week later a state of epidemic on the basis of the Act of 5 December 2008 on preventing and combating infections and infectious diseases. For a century, Poland has been dealing with epidemics by delegating powers to the executive by ordinary legislative means. Anti-epidemic emergency measures were developed under the relevant acts of 1919, 1935, 1963, 2001, 2008 and now form an autonomous normative model authorised directly by Article 68 (4) of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 2 April 1997. The Constitution of 2 April 1997 authorises also extraordinary measures in situations of particular danger, "if ordinary constitutional measures are inadequate". This article analyses anti-epidemic emergency regimes under Polish law in a comparative, historical and jurisprudential perspective.

[Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): Involuntary admission yes, involuntary treatment no]. / Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): internamiento involuntario sí, tratamiento obligatorio no.

We had the opportunity to know a judicial decision in relation to a nonagenarian COVID-19 patient, which is clarifying regarding the complex issue of involuntary admission and involuntary treatment of the elderly. The judge authorized the involuntary admission but denied the possibility of imposing medical treatment against the will of the patient. This situation invites us to review the different types of involuntary admission that our legal system provides and how involuntary medical treatment is regulated according to its purpose and the patient's ability to decide. In the field of public health, the determining element to be able to impose any sanitary measure against the will of the patient is the risk to the health of the population. In the case presented, the judge rejects the possibility of authorizing medical treatment for not contributing anything from the point of view of public health. However, it does authorize involuntary admission as it is essential to guarantee isolation.

Do recipients of the first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in December have a legal case against the UK government's decision to postpone their second dose?

The Covid-19 pandemic in the UK has been greatly worsened by the mutation of the virus, which began in the South East and was rapidly spreading and in danger of overwhelming the NHS as hospital admissions and deaths continued to rise. In consequence, the Chief Medical Officers of all four nations supported the UK government's sudden decision to delay the second dose of the Pfizer/BioNtech and Oxford/AstraZeneka vaccines for 12 weeks (instead of 3) so that more people in the most vulnerable population groups would receive a first dose and some immunity sooner. The expectation is that this strategy would reduce hospital admissions and deaths. This article considers key medical and legal issues arising from this decision and discusses inter alia rationing of scarce resources, fairness, whether it is for the greater good, consent, individual human rights, negligence and claims for potential or actual injury.

Medico-legal aspects related to Telemedicine in Tunisia in the context of the covid-19 pandemic.

Telemedicine has become a privileged mode of medical practice providing medical care while reducing the transmission of Covid-19 among patients, families, and clinicians. The law established in 2018 settled a legal framework for telemedicine in Tunisia. However, thelatterremains not sufficient in itself, as legal issues remain especially delimiting the precise conditions for this exercise and to expose the limits of responsibility of each party involved among its organizers, its health service providers, and its users. Several medico-legal issues may be generated by the practice of telemedicine in Tunisia. Our paper aimed to discuss these medico-legal issues relating to telemedicine in anticipation of its legislation.

The Rights to Life, Dignity and the Highest Attainable Standard of Health: Internationally Influential African Jurisprudence.

The right to the highest attainable standard of health, existing under a number of international human rights instruments, including Art 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, has been incorporated in local law and in the constitutions of many countries. An important body of jurisprudence interpreting such rights and applying them in particular factual health scenarios is developing. Against the background of the South African Constitutional Court's 2002 landmark decision in Minister of Health v Treatment Action Campaign (No 2) (2002) 5 SA 721 in relation to access to HIV medications, this editorial reviews significant decisions in 2012 by Ngugi J of the Kenya High Court in PAO v Attorney General [2012] eKLR and by the Uganda Constitutional Court in 2020 in Center for Health, Human Rights and Development v Attorney General [2020] UGCC 12. It contends that this combination of high-profile judgments has breathed substance and significance into the right to the highest attainable standard of health, the entitlement to be treated with dignity and the right to life at a time when these rights may assume additional importance in the context of the availability and accessibility of vaccines for the COVID-19 virus.

When a virus (Covid-19) attacks human rights: The situation of asylum seekers in the medico-legal setting.

The Covid-19 pandemic is a global health emergency that requires immediate, effective action by governments to protect the health and basic human rights of everyone's life. Refugees and migrants are potentially at increased risk because they typically live in overcrowded conditions often without access to basic sanitation. Since the beginning of the official lockdown for Covid-19, the medico-legal assessment of physical violence related to obtaining status or other forms of human protection has been frozen.