CYIL vol. 13 (2022)

HELENA VAN BEERSEL KREJČÍKOVÁ

CYIL 13 ȍ2022Ȏ

Introduction As most of what are known as western countries, 2 including the Czech Republic, consist at least to some extent of a multicultural and/or multireligious population, their healthcare system inevitably faces the challenges arisen from patients and healthcare workers being members of minorities whose lifestyle, set of values, and religion might vary from what is recognised by the majority as reasonable and acceptable. The phenomenon of different cultural and religious perspectives 3 in healthcare has thus become an important issue of health law and bioethics in the last decades, albeit not that straightforward in the Czech Republic. The reason why the Czech healthcare system has not been systematically studied conflicting cultural and religious perspectives, nor have they ever seemed to be one of the priorities of the researchers or policymakers, could probably be explained by the fact that the population in the Czech Republic is actually rather homogenous. In 2021 (i.e., before the migration from Ukraine started), out of the total population consisting of ca 10.5 million people, there were ca 660,000 foreigners residing in the Czech Republic, out of which almost 197,000 were Ukrainian, 115,000 Slovak, 65,000 Vietnamese, 45,000 Russian, etc. 4 The biggest Czech minority, Roma population, was estimated to consist of ca 240,000 members, i.e., 2.2% of the population, in 2017. 5 Besides, the national survey on population residing in the Czech Republic conducted in 2021 confirmed the general assumption that the Czech residents are quite atheistic. According to the answers provided by the respondents, 6 more than 5 million of the respondents do not feel religious, and another 960,000 of them are not part of any church (despite being somewhat spiritual). Only ca 741,000 of the respondents are members of the Roman Catholic Church, which is the Czech church with the largest following, followed by ca 32,600 members of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, and ca 23,600 members of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church. 7 Thus, the slightly simplified summary would be that the vast majority of the population in the Czech Republic are Czech citizens who are by large atheistic or at most moderately religious which is also reflected by the secular nature of Czech law. 8 The above mentioned statistics also explains why the Czech healthcare system cannot really offer a colourful history 2 The term western countries/western world in this context could be defined as European, North American, and other (often relatively wealthy) countries with populations of mainly European ancestry. Cf. e.g., www.lexico.com 3 The term religious background/religious perspective will be further in the text used largo sensu also to refer to spiritual or other personal beliefs and conscience (moral reasons), if not emphasised otherwise. By cultural background/perspective, I also mean ethnicity. 4 Data published by the Czech Statistical Office, available online from: https://www.czso.cz/docu ments/11292/27320905/c01R01_2021.pdf/3684c8ef-fc19-493e-8498-416697170c0a?version=1.0 https://info cizinci.cz/cr/migrace-mensiny-a-cizinci-v-cr-2021/. 5 Cf. the Report on the state of the Roma minority in the Czech Republic in 2019, available online from: https:// www.vlada.cz/cz/ppov/zalezitosti-romske-komunity/dokumenty/zprava-o-stavu-romske-mensiny-v-ceske republice-za-rok-2018-177049/. 6 Almost 3.2 million of the respondents did not provide the conductors of the survey by any answer. 7 Data published by the Czech Statistical Office, available online from: https://www.czso.cz/csu/scitani2021/ nabozenska-vira. 8 Cf. also the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms of the Czech Republic, Art. 2(1): Democratic values constitute the foundation of the state, so that it may not be bound either to an exclusive ideology or to a particular religious faith.

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