Civil Law Dimension in Health Law

In health maintenance, there are two parties that need to be distinguished:

  1. Health Receivers, namely recipients of health services, including patients, namely people who are sick, and people who want to maintain or improve their health.
  2. Health Providers, namely health service providers, namely doctors and other health personnel such as nurses, pharmacists, midwives, laboratory technicians, nutritionists, and others.

Application of civil law in health maintenance can be seen from the relationship between Health Receivers and Health Providers. The relationship between a doctor and a patient, for example, is not only a medical relationship, but also a legal relationship contained in a medical agreement or, if it relates to healing/curative, is called a Therapeutic Agreement.

The agreement between a doctor and a patient in health maintenance is not always curative, but also preventive (disease prevention), rehabilitative (health recovery), and promotive (improving health quality). The agreement itself is regulated in the Civil Code in the law of obligations. Article 1320 of the Civil Code regulates the conditions for the validity of an agreement and if there is a party who is harmed - according to Article 1365 of the Civil Code, the party that causes the loss is obliged to pay compensation.