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The dissertation investigates health care professionals’ freedom of religion and belief. The overarching aim is to examine the rights or freedoms of health care personnel to work in accordance with their convictions while their employers – the care providers (caregiver) – have responsibilities to fulfill the legal requirement to provide patients good care. The thesis focuses on certain situations in which health care personnel do not want to provide some care, service, or information in light of their beliefs or conscience – described as conscientious objections in health care.

The study analyses traditional legal sources, such as statutes and regulations, preparatory works, court decisions, and agency practice, as well as scholarly work (doktrin), with the goal of investigating the juridical possibilities for personnel to work in accordance with their religion or beliefs. These materials are not, however, used simply to ascertain the applicable law, but also to canvass the types of conflicts of interest that they identify, to further elucidate the interests of different actors in health care – the care provider, health care personnel, and the patient. One of the purposes of this thesis is to demonstrate how different conflicts of interest may come to light when personnel refuse, for religious and moral reasons, to participate in certain forms of health care and other duties associated with providing that care.

The question of whether health care personnel’s religiously based actions or inaction will be allowed as derogations from general requirements ultimately turns on the possibilities, in each case, to find a reasonable balance between personnel’s religious interests and the patient’s interest in obtaining good and safe care on equal terms. The caregiver plays a key role in determining personnel’s exemptions from their tasks in accordance with their beliefs. However, the author suggests that the Government should clarify the responsibilities that a care provider has regarding conscientious objections, as well as what the personnel who wish to be free from participation in certain care may expect in the consideration of such requests.