Access to innovation - research, medical ethics, patient rights and financial resources

Abstract

This article deals with the identification of patient´s rights as regards the access to innovation in health care, and the reconciliation of these rights and the rights of other patients and the sustainability of the health system. Is it legitimate for the State to restrain the access of patients to innovative treatments representing their only chance of cure, or a substantial improvement in their health, in the name of economic criteria? These criteria and decisions can be assessed by the courts? It is legitimate to use, in the weighting of costs and benefits, criteria such as age of the patient, excluding the terminally ill patients from the benefit of certain treatments? And if we use the right to life as the decisive argument in the access to innovation, ensuring in all cases of survival, the newest and most expensive technology, there is no risk of harming those patients who still have healing perspectives? Since resources are limited, especially in times of financial crisis, the question of its distribution concerns the whole society, and requires the consideration of legal, medical, financial and political, and ethical criteria.