MIGRATION OF HEALTH PROFESSIONALS: SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT
MIGRATION OF HEALTH PROFESSIONALS: SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT

Summary/Abstract: After Romania joined the EU, the migration of doctors to other countries has increased and the consequences have started to be seen in Romania’s health system. The relation between the right to freedom of movement and the social responsibility of the doctors employed in the Romanian health system who go abroad for professional reasons is of current interest, as doctors’ migration has an impact on the patients’ right to access the health care services. We cannot separate the problem of social responsibility of the doctors who decide to emigrate from principles and ethic values like: equity, liberty, and social justice. Sometimes, social responsibility may even entail the forfeit of some rights, or their exercise within certain limits, so as to avoid encroaching on the equal rights and liberties of other persons and to abide by the ethic principle of doing good. Jeremy Snyder sees in these limitations an obligation and not the choice of a person, who has certain rights and who decides to give up their freedom of movement, to fulfill their obligations towards community. The fact that an individual lives in a community that favours a connection among individuals leads to a moral duty of each one of the community’s members and to social responsibility. Starting from this idea, a higher social responsibility of health care staff can be explained by these connexions and the state of necessity of those who live in the source country, of those who claim a fundamental right: the right to health care.

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