Abstracts Health Sciences

Το δικαίωμα της υγείας και η αξιολόγηση των κέντρων υγείας: από το κοινωνικό στο φιλάνθρωπο κράτος

by Vrasidas Polymenakos

The subject of the thesis is the right to health and the evaluation of Health Centers through the transition from the social to the philanthropic state. The thesis therefore has as a theoretical axis the relationship of law with politics and the more specific question of the autonomy of the first versus the second. It starts from the theoretical assumption that law is "born" in specific political and ideological structures that over-define it. At the same time, however, it also constitutes a structure, with relative autonomy over the other structures. Social subjects are called upon to negotiate their legal categorizations and rights within these legal-political structures. In this case, the question is how much politics shapes the law and how this is reflected in public health law and in particular in the case of the evaluation of Health Centers.The thesis is developed in two parts with four chapters. The first part focuses on the social right to health, attempting to highlight its political and ideological origins and the establishment of the primary health system as a prerequisite for its consolidation through public health law. More specifically, the first chapter concerns the bases of the legal protection of the right to health in the international, european and constitutional framework. The establishment of the fundamental right to health in the Charter of the World Health Organization and in other texts of international treaties defined the content of Health Protection. Similarly, the definition of the social content of Primary Health Care by the declarations of Alma-Ata and Astana defined the broader framework of primary care policies. Subsequently, in the Greek Constitution, the protection of the right to health is linked to the obligation of the state to ensure effective access to health services to meet health needs. The second chapter concerns the legislative consolidation of the social right to health and its case-law consolidation but also the renegotiation of the health acquis in the Greek legal order. Historically, the establishment of the National Health System strengthened the interventionist role of the state in defending the health acquis. The prevailing social-democratic interpretation of social rights at that time formed a certain protective legislative framework. The relevant case law were in the same direction at that time. The economic crisis and the imposition of the memoranda introduced neoliberal elements in the relevant legislative framework for health coverage by reinforcing an individualized approach to social rights in the context of the prevailing neoliberal interpretation of the welfare state. The result was the emergence of a weakened health acquis. As in the previous period, the case law followed the legal-political developments by integrating this time the fiscal interest in the judicial judgment mechanism of the relevant cases.In the second part, the changes in the form of the modern state and the role of the new public health law are described, while the operation and evaluation…