The health sector as a power in psychiatric system in Hungary

Abstract

Health care, as a scientific field, is a construction of the power, that due to medical socialization and the asymmetrical nature of the doctor-patient relationship, frames the whole care system and elevates the doctor to a position of power having sacred functions from the very beginnings. The law must respond to the injustices and the violations of human rights resulting from this asymmetrical relationship. Psychiatry is intrinsically concerned with the most vulnerable people, whose situation can be a source of multiple injustices. During the socialist period two sociographies were written on this topic by Péter Hajnóczy and Péter Bakonyi. Despite this, recent research and psychiatric narratives also point to the re-emergence of injustices throughout the care system. The modern ‘soul approach’ has not brought a renaissance in psychiatric care. Ágnes Zsidai makes a good point when she examines the legal situation in the doctor-patient relationship in 2009. In this paper I seek to relate to her work, to point out the inner world of this special legal relationship in my own field.