Advancing the Rights of Patients in Nigeria: Analysing the Patients' Bill of Rights.

The rights of persons who seek medical attention have been enshrined in national and international legal instruments, notwithstanding their health status. However, these rights are not fully secured in Nigeria due to some factors affecting the health care system. Using the doctrinal method of study, this article examines the concept of the rights of patients in Nigeria. It discusses the nature of the health system in Nigeria and highlights the rights stated in the Patients' Bill of Rights 2018 (Ng) (PBoR) as well as the corresponding duties of health care practitioners. The article shows that the rights of patients in Nigeria highlighted in the PBoR, have been continuously hindered by their weak enforcement, inadequate funding, insufficient health care providers, inadequate infrastructure, lack of awareness and illiteracy. It concludes that urgent steps need to be taken by the Nigerian government as well as other relevant stakeholders in addressing these issues.

Should caregivers be compelled to disclose patients' HIV infection to the patients' sex partners without consent?

The emergence of the HIV/AIDS pandemic has added to the tension between patients' private interests and public health interests regarding medical confidentiality. Many people become infected with HIV because they are unaware of the positive serostatus of their sexual partners. Informing or warning the sexual partners of HIV-positive patients of the patients'serostatus could assist in curtailing the spread of HIV/AIDS because sexual partners can thereby choose to avoid having unprotected sex with infected persons. By law, however, doctors have a duty to their patients to protect their medical confidentiality. Doctors, therefore, face a dilemma concerning which should prevail: patients' right to privacy and confidentiality or the importance to society of controlling the spread of the pandemic. Most medical regulatory bodies do not take clear-cut positions on the issue, leaving the decision to the discretion of individual doctors. The question of whether doctors should be legally empowered to breach the confidence of patients to protect the patients' sexual partners is discussed here with reference to the existing laws of Canada, the United States, and Nigeria.