Patients' rights in the Republic of Croatia.

As one of the first transition countries in Central and Southeast Europe, the Republic of Croatia, through comprehensive health service legislation, has made a significant step forward in aligning its standards in the protection of patients' right to those that exist in the developed western democracies. However, the legislation on patients' rights is still not having any significant effect on improving the position of patients in the health system. In this paper, the emphasis is on presenting the legal solutions from the recent Act on the Protection of Patients' Rights, including an analysis of the causes of the existing discrepancy between the legal standards and the actual position of patients in Croatia.