Proteção jurídica dos profissionais de saúde envolvidos no atendimento em contexto da pandemia da COVID-19

COVID-19 is the first contemporary public health crisis with the potential to overwhelm the public health system worldwide. Health care is a resource of the shared society and, therefore, the ethical principles that guide its rationing require that services, medicines and equipment be applied where they are most effective, which prioritizes patients most likely to benefit from treatment. Health service providers make rational decisions with scarce resources, and deserve considerable freedom for their deliberations in good faith guided by established ethical structures. The standard of care properly applied is modulated in its application, which requires a mitigation of medical liability within certain objective parameters. The normative logic is based on the principle of reciprocity. When society asks some of its members to take great personal risks in serving the interests of the public, it is reasonable to expect society to take some responsibility for them in exchange for the risks taken. It is appropriate for public policy makers to articulate special care standards for mass disasters, such as COVID-19. The objective of the article is to identify how in Brazil, Portugal and Spain, the change in circumstances imposed the adequacy of the judicial analysis of professional standards of conduct to a panorama of calamity.