Liability of administration for medical malpractice

The right to health as a fundamental human right is not only a constitutional right, but guaranteed by international human right agreements. To ensure its implementation, State has positive duties of protection and facilitation as well as a negative duty of non-intervention to make sure it is fully respected. To enable holders to exercise their right, State is to provide health services as a monopoly. Health provision may take an important form of 'medical interventions' to human body and mental state. Such interventions involve diagnosis, treatment or prevention and should be carried out by those health officers who are dully authorised by law and in a manner required by medical science. Failing to do so amounts to a breach of law. Wrongful acts of this kind give rise to medical malpractice. Such violations of legal obligations entail liability. Since it is the human body at the receiving end, damages occurred by medical interventions in general tend to be more serious than not. The State's constitutional responsibility to provide heath services also makes it accountable for the damages caused by medical interventions in this process. Therefore, it is crucial for reparations of damages to determine for what damages and in what way service providers ought to be held liable and under what conditions the liability could be attributed. The present study first aims to define the right to health and the State's corresponding obligations. Secondly, it examines the concept of medical interventions as part of exercising the right to health. It will further look into relevant circumstances in which medical interventions cause malpractice. Finally, the liability of the State is analysed within the context of damages caused by medical negligence in particular.