Conflicts of Doctor’s Duties in the Case of an Extreme Shortage of Intensive Care Beds and the Good Samaritan Clause from the Perspective of Criminal Law

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed many weaknesses of healthcare systems. An example of a crisis situation is the case of a doctor who has to make a decision about qualifying a patient with COVID-19 for an intensive care bed when there are not enough such beds and when, out of the many obligations to save lives, he can choose and fulfil only one. The aim of this paper is to analyse the criteria of establishing the priority in access to intensive care, to settle the conflict of obligations in regard to criminal liability, with respect to Art. 26 § 5 of the Polish penal code regarding the doctor’s decision to provide, or to not provide, healthcare services including intensive care given the extreme shortage of the beds, to determine the scope of legal safety guarantees laid down in the good Samaritan clause and the relationship between the conflict of duties and the clause. The work is theoretical with the use of a formal-dogmatic and functional analysis of Polish criminal law.