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Emergency medical care constitutes a fundamental patient right and an institutional obligation of hospitals that must be provided without temporal discrimination. However, in practice and public discourse, the meaning of “physician presence” is often narrowly reduced to physical presence alone, giving rise to allegations of medical negligence, particularly during weekends or outside regular working hours. This distorted understanding risks generating legal injustice, undermining the dignity of the medical profession, and encouraging defensive medical practice. This article aims to analyze the meaning of physician presence from a health law perspective through theoretical, normative, and systemic approaches, by distinguishing models of physician presence as on-site, on-call, and home-call/teleconsultation in emergency care services. This study employs a normative legal research method using statutory, conceptual, and limited comparative approaches. The analysis examines Law Number 17 of 2023 on Health, Government Regulation Number 28 of 2024, as well as health law literature and emergency care practices. The analysis demonstrates that, in legal terms, physician presence is not synonymous with physical presence, but rather should be understood as process-based professional responsibility, provided that care is delivered in accordance with professional standards, service standards, and an adequate triage system. Physician presence must be reconstructed as the presence of professional responsibility within an integrated emergency care system. Legal assessment in health law should be grounded in process and system integrity, rather than solely on clinical outcomes or public perception.

Abstract. The right to health is an integral part of human rights guaranteed by the Constitution and further reinforced by Law Number 17 of 2023 on Health, which places the state as the party responsible for ensuring the provision of safe, high-quality, and non-discriminatory health services for all citizens. However, in practice, the fulfillment of the right to health continues to face various challenges, particularly in the delivery of health services for participants of BPJS Kesehatan. This study aims to analyze the legal protection of the right to health in Indonesia and to examine the refusal of medical services to BPJS patients that resulted in death in Papua from a human rights perspective. The research employs a normative legal research method using statutory, conceptual, and case approaches. The findings indicate that although the national legal framework has clearly regulated the obligations of the state and health care facilities in providing emergency services, its implementation remains weak due to administrative barriers, unequal access to health services, and inconsistent law enforcement. The refusal of medical services to BPJS patients in Papua reflects a tension between hospitals’ administrative compliance and the professional obligation of medical personnel to save human lives. The implications of this study emphasize the need to strengthen supervision, ensure consistent law enforcement, and improve health service governance so that the right to health is truly protected as part of human dignity within the Indonesian rule of law.