Region: Americas
Year: 2012
Court: Supreme Court of Justice [Corte Suprema de Justicia de la Nación Argentina]
Health Topics: Chronic and noncommunicable diseases, Health systems and financing, Hospitals
Human Rights: Right to health, Right to life
Tags: Access to health care, Access to treatment, Chronic and noncommunicable diseases, Health care workers
The plaintiff filed a guarantee of protection of individual constitutional rights (amparo protection) to the First Instance Family Court [Juzgado de Familia N°1 de Olavarría] against the Federal Program of Health [PROFE Salud] to provide the medication prescribed by her physician to treat her chronic kidney failure. The local court held it was not competent to treat the case because the Law 23 661 article 38 said that cases of social health insurance should be solved in federal jurisdiction. The Federal First Instance Court found that it was not competent to decide because the Federal Program of Health was not an health insurance, but it was a financial assistance from the National Ministry of Health to the provinces and the PROFE Salud is executed by the Ministry of health of the Province of Buenos Aires so it was not a subject of federal jurisdiction.
The Federal First Instance Court send the case to the Supreme Court of justice to decide the competence.
The Supreme Court of Justice held that the competent tribunal was the provincial court because even though the Federal Program of Health was created by the National Ministry of Health, it celebrated agreements with the provinces, in this case with the Ministry of Health of the Province of Buenos Aires so the program was under provincial jurisdiction by provincial decree 1532/10. At the same time, the PROFE Salud is not a health insurance so the federal jurisdiction was not applicable.