The article provides an overview of the legal regulation of the right to health and medical procedures in Slovenia for people of diverse sexual orientations, gender identities/expressions, or sex ...characteristics. It also presents hospital practices and the perceived relationship between patients and medical staff. Three objectives are pursued: to provide a comprehensive overview of Slovenian gender and sexual orientation legislation and hospital policies; to investigate how legal norms and hospital policies are implemented in clinical practice; and to highlight the ethical challenges perceived by healthcare workers and patients as a result of social diversity. Several types of data were reviewed: relevant legislation, internal documents from Slovenian general hospitals, documents from the Advocate of the Principles of Equality and the Human Rights Ombudsman, medical literature, and literature from non-governmental organizations. The reviewed and analyzed data indicate that some hospital staff lack the necessary skills to work with vulnerable groups, despite the fact that discrimination is prohibited by law and that cultural competency training is occasionallyprovided to healthcare professionals.
U radu se predstavlja pregled zakonodavstva o pravu na zdravstvene postupke za osobe različitih seksualnih orijentacija, rodnih identiteta/ekspresije ili seksualnih karakteristika u Sloveniji. Navode se i bolničke prakse i percipirani odnos između pacijenata i medicinskog osoblja. Rad ima tri cilja: pružiti sveobuhvatan pregled slovenskog zakonodavstva o rodu i seksualnoj orijentaciji te bolničkih politika; istražiti kako se pravne norme i bolničke politike provode u kliničkoj praksi; prepoznati etičke izazove koje percipiraju zdravstveni radnici i pacijenti kao posljedicu društvene raznolikosti. Analizirano je nekoliko vrsta podataka: relevantno zakonodavstvo, interni dokumenti općih bolnica u Sloveniji, dokumenti zagovornika načela jednakosti i pučkog pravobranitelja za ljudska prava, medicinska literatura i literatura iz nevladinih organizacija. Pregledani i analizirani podaci ukazuju na to da dio bolničkog osoblja ne posjeduje vještine potrebne za rad s ranjivim skupinama, unatoč činjenici da je diskriminacija zakonom zabranjena i da se zdravstvenim djelatnicima povremeno pruža obuka u području kulturne kompetencije.
During the Coronavirus epidemic in Slovenia (March 2020 to June 2021) and during the period of global public health emergency due to COVID-19 (January 2020 to May 2023), public discourse about ...physicians in the Slovenian media and on social media fluctuated between extremes ranging from idolisation, hero worship and contempt to verbal and physical threats. These diametrically different images of doctors coincided with the measures taken in the country to contain the epidemic and the consequences for the lives of people who suddenly lost their livelihoods and sense of freedom. The discourse observed in comments under media reports and on social media about physicians between January 2020 and May 2023 shows that the entire burden of staff shortages and otherwise poorly organised healthcare fell on medical personnel, who had to deal with long queues, exhaustion and escalated verbal and physical aggression. The depriving of the right to treatment for anyone within a reasonable period of time, which loomed over the entire healthcare system due to the Coronavirus, together with the circulation of different conspiracy theories, caused intense anger, vulgar insults and comparisons of all kinds, physical harassment and death threats against individual physicians, as well as an unjustifiably growing distrust of medicine in general. This article analyses the hostile and abusive online communications that, in real life, were unleashed in occasional physical attacks and other forms of violence against medical personnel in Slovenia. It highlights the complicated interplay between medicine and the social and cultural context during the COVID-19 pandemic and illustrates the complexity of medicine beyond biological understanding.
The heritage of Slovenian house names and surnames reflects, among others, the former medicine and pharmaceutical occupations, midwifery, and folk medicine practices, and besides that, also health ...status and illnesses of people. Surnames, which are especially strongly intertwined with family, local and social history, are closely related to folk medicine and magic. Unlike house names (vulgo), which are the usual nicknames for physical and mental characteristics and abilities, surnames denote medical occupations and medicinal folk practice as such. According to the most recent data (as of January 1, 2020) of The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, at least 40 surnames reminiscent former medical or pharmaceutical professions. These newly discovered digital data in open access are precious for the history of medicine because they allow comparing surnames geographically, by frequency, and through the time.
Blood is not solely a body part and a medicinal substance; it’s likewise a metaphor for life. Blood as a social concept has mainly been explored as a symbol of kinship, genetic heritage and lineage, ...nationalism, race, taboo, in rituals, and blood donations. Besides that, ethnic or national survival is also written on the map with bloody place-names. When the soil is soaked with blood of patriotic defenders and endangering others, the collective memory creates new bloody geographical names. They record the evidence of historically important harsh events, remind us of heroic battles, neighbouring antagonisms, or, provide an insight into religious changes in the area. The stories of violent killings and bloodshed in defence of a country, enriched with fears, imagination and prejudices towards the bloodthirsty foreign invaders, such as Turks or French, upset people’s blood. Though the base kri, blood, Blut, krvav, blutig is proportionally rare in Slovene toponymics, these geographical names describe historic episodes of groups and a nation. The tales about the origin of bloody place-names and about the horrific blood spill, which stops the blood in the veins, became a part of the nation’s cultural heritage.
The Avsenik Brothers Ensemble is by far the most successful Slovene music group performing popular-national music, having sold 36 million albums worldwide and having been featured in more than 10,000 ...live shows. Year 2013 marked the 60th anniversary of successful music-making for the brothers Slavko Avsenik and Vilko Ovsenik. Today the family music tradition is actively pursued by Slavko's son Gregor, and grandson Sašo, who continue the artistry of the Avseniks and oversee the family business built around it. The article provides a historical qualitative description of the Avseniks' career, their business model, the milestones of their success, music expansion and building of the identity of popular-national music in Slovenia.
Diversity competency is an approach for improving access to healthcare for members of minority groups. It includes a commitment to institutional policies and practices aimed at the improvement of the ...relationship between patients and healthcare professionals. The aim of this research is to investigate whether and how such a commitment is included in internal documents of hospitals in Croatia, Germany, Poland, and Slovenia. Using the methods of documentary research and thematic analysis we examined internal documents received from hospitals in these countries. In all four countries, the documents concentrate on general statements prohibiting discrimination with regard to healthcare provision. Specific regulations concerning ethnicity and culture focus on the issue of language barriers. With regard to religious practices, the documents from Croatia, Poland, and Slovenia focus on dominant religious groups. Observance of other religious practices and customs is rarely addressed. Healthcare needs of patients with non-heteronormative sexual orientation, intersexual, and transgender patients are explicitly addressed in only a few internal documents. Diversity competency policies are not comprehensively implemented in hospital internal regulations in hospitals under investigation. There is a need for the development and implementation of comprehensive policies in hospitals aiming at the specific needs of minority groups.
Honor and shame are ideas that can be dealt with outside the ethics of virtues; they are generated morally, culturally, economically, indirectly and through religion. Even the knowledge of culturally ...incongruous, culturally specific or historical remnants of the forms of honor determines our current feeling of honor, which is why the notion of honor often involves different dimensions and perspectives. When we talk about honor in everyday life, we merge honor with other similar, although different concepts or consequences of honor. When attempting to define and describe honor, we use tropes, e.g. metaphors and metonymies. We try to hide our shame as much as possible, and we rarely call it by its real name. In special situations we use proverbs, moral or philosophical maxims, or other figures of speech in an attempt to achieve the strongest rhetorical impact or to indirectly influence someone's opinion. In doing so, we rely on our feeling of honor; the very feeling that fails when people deviate from honor. Deviations from honor are the departures that we witness in the media descriptions of the famous and elsewhere in public life; all these are the forms of public honor and pathological ambition and violence towards the weak in the name of honor. Numerous relations between words appear in everyday life, referring to all instances of honor and shame. What is important is how the current social, cultural and historical moment influences the understanding of honor, especially in the light of human rights violation, limiting the rights of women, the separation of church and state, hate speech, violence and celebrating false honor. Referring to one's honor is a matter of morality, symbolic capital, social relations and the principle of ineradicable equality among people, as determined by human rights documents. //ABSTRACT IN CROATIAN: Uvid u uporabu koncepta casti u svakodnevnom zivotu svjedoci o nasim suvremenim identitetima. Oni potvrduju da je cast dio kolektivnog identiteta, odnosa moci, te da je etika casti vazna za razumijevanje moralno utemeljenoga ponasanja i u vlastitim i u stranim kulturama. Zbog razlicitih kulturno-povijesnih okolnosti mijenjali su se i koncepti casti. Svagdasnja kultura casti i sramote utjece na formalne i neformalne, verbalne i neverbalne oblike komunikacije: na govor, gestikulaciju, mimiku, drzanje tijela, odijevanje, pozdravljanje i na sve druge nacine izrazavanja. Znanje o tome kako, kad i zasto izricemo nesto o casti i sramoti zato ne smije biti sporedna stvar u razumijevanju svakodnevnog zivota.
U radu se predstavlja pregled zakonodavstva o pravu na zdravstvene postupke za osobe različitih seksualnih orijentacija, rodnih identiteta/ekspresije ili seksualnih karakteristika u Sloveniji. Navode ...se i bolničke prakse i percipirani odnos izmed strok signu pacijenata i medicinskog osoblja. Rad ima tri cilja: pružiti sveobuhvatan pregled slovenskog zakonodavstva o rodu i seksualnoj orijentaciji te bolničkih politika; istražiti kako se pravne norme i bolničke politike provode u kliničkoj praksi; prepoznati etičke izazove koje percipiraju zdravstveni radnici i pacijenti kao posljedicu društvene raznolikosti. Analizirano je nekoliko vrsta podataka: relevantno zakonodavstvo, interni dokumenti općih bolnica u Sloveniji, dokumenti zagovornika načela jednakosti i pučkog pravobranitelja za ljudska prava, medicinska literatura i literatura iz nevladinih organizacija. Pregledani i analizirani podaci ukazuju na to da dio bolničkog osoblja ne posjeduje vještine potrebne za rad s ranjivim skupinama, unatoč činjenici da je diskriminacija zakonom zabranjena i da se zdravstvenim djelatnicima povremeno pruža obuka u području kulturne kompetencije.
Social diversity can affect healthcare outcomes in situations when access to healthcare is limited for specific groups. Although the principle of equality is one of the central topics on the agenda ...of the European Union (EU), its scope in the field of healthcare, however, is relatively unexplored. The aim of this study is to identify and systematically analyze primary and secondary legislation of the EU Institutions that concern the issue of access to healthcare for various minority groups. In our research, we have concentrated on three features of diversity: a) gender identity and sexual orientation, b) race and ethnicity, and c) religion or belief.
For the purpose of this analysis, we conducted a search of database Eur-Lex, the official website of European Union law and other public documents of the European Union, based on specific keywords accompanied by review of secondary literature. Relevant documents were examined with regard to the research topic. Our search covered documents that were in force between 13 December 2007 and 31 July 2019.
Generally, the EU legal system prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion or belief, racial or ethnic origin, sex, and sexual orientation. However, with regard to the issue of non-discrimination in access to healthcare EU secondary law provides protection against discrimination only on the grounds of racial or ethnic origin and sex. The issue of discrimination in healthcare on the grounds of religion or belief, gender identity and sexual orientation is not specifically addressed under EU secondary law.
The absence of regulations regarding non-discrimination in the EU secondary law in the area of healthcare may result from the division of competences between the European Union and the Member States. Reluctance of the Member States to adopt comprehensive antidiscrimination regulations leads to a situation, in which protection in access to healthcare primarily depends on national regulations.
Our study shows that EU antidiscriminatory law with regard to access to healthcare is fragmentary. Prohibition of discrimination of the level of European binding law does not fully encompass all aspects of social diversity.
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