Problems of legal support of the safety of healthcare workers in performing their official and professional duties

Encroachment on the life and health of healthcare workers in performing their official and professional duties has been one of the most serious medical and social problems in the past decade. There are regular attacks on ambulance workers and health care facility physicians in almost every region of the Russian Federation. Being a healthcare worker is no less dangerous than being law enforcement officer, an official of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, or other emergency-related professionals. At the same time, there are no special, relevant legislative acts establishing the rights, duties, and responsibility of citizens for such crimes. The effective mechanism for legal regulation of the protection of healthcare workers in performing their official duties has not been worked out. The government’s increased responsibility for the life of a person performing professional duties should be established by special provisions that will be embodied in different branches of procedural law, creating a consistent chain of legislative regulations of the protection of legal relations, rather than by the common law rule that declaratively proclaims that the person must be protected from any encroachments. The authors of the paper substantiate the need to revise the current criminal legislation in terms of establishing additional guarantees that ensure the protection of the life and health of healthcare workers in performing their duties, and make proposals for its improvement. © 2018, Media Sphera Publishing Group. All rights reserved.