The Province of British Columbia (BC) passed the Tobacco Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act (the “Act”) to allow the government to sue tobacco manufacturers for the costs of providing health care to individuals exposed to tobacco products. Under the Act a given manufacturer could be held liable for a proportion of provincial health …Read more

Section 15 of the Health Insurance Act (HEIA) and s. 11 of the Hospital Insurance Act (HOIA) prohibited Quebec residents from taking out private health insurance for services covered by Quebec’s public health care plan. The two Appellants, Jacques Chaoulli and George Zeliotis, contested the validity of this prohibition.  They alleged that these prohibitions deprived …Read more

The decision addressed three petitions with similar facts. In all three cases, the petitioners were diagnosed with cancer and prescribed a medication not included in the health services basket available under the national health care services (which was prohibitively expensive to purchase individually). By the time two of the petitions came to the Court, however, …Read more

The Health (Amendment) (No.2) Bill of 2004 was referred to the Supreme Court for review. Primarily the Supreme Court was asked to analyse the constitutional validity of the bill. Amendment to Section 53 of the Act imposed certain charges mostly on elderly people with limited means for in-patient treatment by public health services. Further, the …Read more

Applicants filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights alleging that the Moldovan government’s inadequate financing of hemodialysis treatments violated their right to life, caused them significant pain and suffering, and negatively affected their families’ lives. Applicants were a group of patients suffering from liver failure and receiving hemodialysis treatments. They alleged that …Read more

In this case a number of petitioners challenged the constitutional validity of an act reforming the public health insurance system. The impugned provisions were: Article 3 of the Act inserted articles which provide for establishment provides for the establishment of a system to promote coordination, quality and continuity of care and will allow for monitoring …Read more

The petitioner filed a writ of amparo (appeal for legal protection) against the Ministry of Health of Peru. She sought free administration of comprehensive medical treatment for HIV, including both the continuous delivery of necessary medicines and the performance of periodic CD4 cell count and viral load tests upon medical indication and/or the patient’s urgent …Read more

Mrs. Torres Puerta (the “Patient”) was affiliated with E.P.S. Coomeva, a Health Providing Entity. (Note: in Colombia, Health Providing Entities are in charge of providing healthcare services to employees, who must subscribe to one of such entities and pay a monthly fee which their employer deducts from their salary). In 2002, The Patient received authorization …Read more

Changes in French domestic law required foreign nationals to have lawfully resided in France for three continuous months and to satisfy an economic means test in order to qualify for benefits under the country’s universal medical coverage (CMU) program. The benefits for lawful nationals included health insurance with a potential to receive supplemental insurance. Conversely, …Read more

The plaintiff regularly stayed in Germany during part of the year and needed dental treatment. The first treatment was deemed acute and thus paid for by the German version of the Swedish Social Security Insurance Agency (SSIA). Subsequent treatments were deemed not acute and thus were not paid for. The plaintiff sought compensation by the …Read more