Region: Americas
Year: 2014
Court: Supreme Court of Justice [Corte Suprema de Justicia de la Nación Argentina]
Health Topics: Health care and health services, Health systems and financing, Sexual and reproductive health
Human Rights: Right to family life, Right to health, Right to life, Right to social security
Tags: Access to health care, Access to medicines, Access to treatment, Assisted reproductive technology, Health regulation, Health spending, Pregnancy
The plaintiff filed a guarantee of protection of individual constitutional rights (amparo protection) against the IAPOS (Instituto Autárquico Provincial de Obras Sociales) to provide coverage for all expenditures that could arise from a reproductive assisted treatment and to cover the amounts paid for such treatment.
The First Instance Civil and Commercial Court granted the amparo protection. The respondent filed an appeal to the Civil and Commercial Court of Appeal of Santa Fe [Cámara de Apelación en lo Civil y Comercial de la Provincia de Santa Fe] which revoked the previous judgement. The plaintiff brought the case to the Supreme Court of Justice of the Province of Santa Fe which confirmed the Court of Appeal Judgement. The plaintiff filed an extraordinary appeal to the Supreme Court of Justice.
The Supreme Court of Justice held that because federal legislation was passed in 2013 (Law 26. 862) which established that all health services providers (public or private) should guarantee access to reproductive health technology and treatment, it was unnecessary for the court to pronounce judgement. However, according to the "Peso" case, the court could revoke a challenged judgement if maintaining the judgment would produce an unjustified harm to the plaintiffs. Therefore, the Court revoked the challenged judgement.
"En este nuevo régimen se establece que "todos aquellos agentes que brinden servicios médico asistenciales a sus afiliados independientemente de la figura jurídica que posean, incorporarán -como prestaciones obligatorias y a brindar a sus afiliados o beneficiarios, la cobertura integral e interdisciplinaria del abordaje, el diagnóstico, los medicamentos y las terapias de apoyo y los procedimientos y las técnicas que la Organización Mundial de la Salud definen como de reproducción médicamente asistida." Paragraph 4.
"This new regime establishes that "all those agents that provide medical assistance services to their affiliates independently from the legal entity they poses they will incorporate as mandatory services the comprehensive coverage, the diagnosis the medicines the support therapies, the procedures and the techniques the World Health Organization define as assisted reproductive medicine [...]."" Paragraph 4.