Details

Online conference on “Insurance medicine: legal issues in theory and in practice during the pandemic”

Published: July 10, 2020

On 18 June 2020, the IRZ supported a scientific and practical online conference on “Insurance medicine: legal issues in theory and in practice during the pandemic”. The conference was attended by around sixty people and was organised and led by the Law Academy of the Ministry of Justice for the Russian Federation (Izhevsk branch). It was aimed at the following target groups:

• scientists,
• practitioners in criminal and civil law and in public law,
• medical professionals and
• students.

The lectures given by the speakers were all of a high level. They included a contribution from the Deputy Minister of Health for the Republic of Udmurtia. The IRZ expert taking part was Markus Schlüter, Presiding Judge at the Higher Regional Court of Dresden. He gave a lecture on “Covid-19 and the German Protection against Infection Act”. As a result of the Coronavirus pandemic, on 27 March 2020 the “Law for the protection of the population in an epidemic situation of national scope” was published in the Bundesgesetzblatt (Federal Law Gazette). With this law, § 5a of the Protection against Infection Act (IfSG), governing the exercise of professional duties by medical care staff, was also implemented. Markus Schlüter explained, however, that this paragraph could lead to problems in medical law. He was referring, for example, to the issue of which standard of care should apply for a given treatment or whether medical staff should be liable if they wrongly assess their level of expertise.

The Russian speakers gave lectures on the following topics, amongst others:

• the application of criminal law in the event of violations of the pandemic law
• Issues concerning legal health insurance in connection with Covid-19
• Cybercrime during the pandemic
• Combating fake news
• Experiences of Covid-19 in other countries

Even though a conference in digital format can be no replacement for meeting in person, especially in an international context, the discussions were still lively. Questions were passed on in writing to the moderator before being answered by the speakers. The conference shed light on the current status of the fight against the pandemic and made the most of the opportunity to maintain contact between academics in these exceptional times.