Patients' rights in a Third World southern African country, with special reference to Bophuthatswana: is there any potential for privatisation?

Overview

Patients' rights to medical care, to inviolability without informed consent, and to medical screening tests, for example, are determined by the legal system to which they are subject. The interests of the individual must be weighed against the interests of the society to which he or she belongs, as this must be the criterion used to establish the extent of their rights, if any. The rights of an AIDS patient in a First World country and those of an AIDS patient in a Third World country are bound to differ in extent. The emphasis in the simultaneous duties of the state towards an individual AIDS patient and to society as a whole will differ from state to state. The First and Third World sectors are differentiated with reference to privatisation, and legal forms are touched upon.