History and the current state of legal regulation of the protection of patients' rights in Russia

The paper discusses the main stages of the formation of legislation on protection of the patients' rights; the issues of legal regulation of this sphere in Russia at the present stage are researched. The author analyzes the peculiarities of public relations in the field of healthcare in different historical periods, the current legislation, law enforcement practice in the field of protecting the rights of patients, suggests solutions to improve the norms of Russian legislation, namely, the inclusion in the current regulatory legal acts of the definition of “protection of patients’ rights”. In the study it was found that the largest number of citizens' appeals concerns the issues of violation of their rights to their health protection, inaccessibility of medical care and unsatisfactory quality of service in medical institutions.