ABSTRACT
In the Constitution health has become a fundamental human right to be guaranteed in relations affecting both private life and dealings with public officials. The public ethical dimension began to emerge noticeably at the end of the 1970s during and after the debates in Parliament about the Health Reform Act that led to the founding of the National Health Service. The legislature has been urged to intervene in behalf of the training for health-care workers in order to stress the importance of the education and practice of professional deontology. Soon after World War II, the recognition of patients’ rights was laid down in the constitution of the Republic of Italy in 1947. The significance of legislative norms and regulations increased by degrees to the detriment of the domain reserved for the trust involved in the relationship between health-care personnel and patients, a relationship that is inherent to the pillars of medicine itself.
