"The right to health, as a constitutional right, must be guaranteed to citizens even when the medicines essential for treatment are not included in the official protocols". According to the Court of Cagliari, there is no economic reason on the part of the local health authority to justify the lack of support.
The case
A family had ended up on the streets to pay for the treatment of a family member who later died, so they had asked to be compensated for all the medical expenses incurred, also because - as has been ascertained - the man he had improved his living conditions while taking the drugs denied by the ASL. The patient, with a tumor in a very advanced stage, knowing that he was nearing the end, fearing that he would soon have to depend on his family even for the most elementary daily chores, had decided in 2006 to undertake an alternative method, from which he had drawn a rapid improvement and progressively regaining the autonomy that he thought he had lost.
However, the competent Asl of Cagliari did not dispense those drugs, which had to be purchased periodically in Bologna. Hence the economic - and logistical - difficulties which in a short time put the patient's family in crisis.
Having turned to a lawyer, the family members have obtained an emergency measure of the Court of Cagliari to impose on the ASL 8 the free supply of the drugs for the treatment in question, so as to be able to continue the therapy. The Court of Cagliari has imposed on the Asl of compensate the family for all expenses incurred during the treatment periodeffectively sanctioning the absolute priority of the right to health over any other principle.
08 January 2011
