The urgency of legal protection for medical workers in combating COVID-19 in Indonesia

The urgency of legal protection for medical workers in combating COVID-19 in Indonesia Sunny Ummul Firdaus International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare, Vol. ahead-of-print, No. ahead-of-print, pp.- This paper explores the reasons why Indonesia must have legal regulations to provide protection and guarantees for health workers in carrying out the profession in overcoming corona virus disease (COVID-19). This paper also explains the legal regulations as the foundation for today’s medical workers’ protection. This paper also aims at providing an ideal legal construction that safeguards the rights and obligations of health workers in overcoming COVID-19. In this paper, the author used qualitative research methods with a socio-legal approach. The data were obtained through literature study and analysis of laws and regulations through the socio-legal method. Various challenges and professional risks taken by health workers in dealing with COVID-19 derive from several factors, such as shortage of personal protective equipment, ineffective implementation of informed consent from the patients and the negative stigma spreading in the community. Moreover, the current legal regulation has not particularly modulated the protection of health workers, relying only on available articles that are actually irrelevant to be applied in the COVID-19 pandemic. This research is focused on problems faced by health workers in combating COVID-19 a...
Source: International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Source Type: research