Vulnerability of health systems: Legal versus ethical perspective. Comparative approach Hungary and Romania

The concept of vulnerability is inscribed in the universal specificity of human condition. On the one hand, it expresses human limits and frailty; on the other hand, it represents moral and ethical action principles. Vulnerable persons are those whose autonomy, dignity and integrity are being threatened (Barcelona Declaration, 1998). We propose a comparative analysis of vulnerability in the access to health services in the framework of the health systems reforms from Romania and Hungary, as of 2012. From a methodological point of view, the legal framework is critically analysed (situate ourselves in the paradigm of critical analysis). We use content analysis of the main law texts from the two national contexts. The association between health and politics happens when the health associated risks are shared in the name of solidarity. Thus, the state presents itself as managing health and, indirectly, individual health. Health policies become a necessity. Or, in this management process, through politicizing the health system, medical practice becomes directed from outside in a bureaucratic way, for the worse of the true beneficiaries of health policies and makes the population become vulnerable.