-What is your experience in relation to the enforceability of social rights in small/medium-sized communities in terms of health?
We are dedicated to building unrecognized rights. Beginning with forms to collect signatures from the neighbors, going through recognition in the Deliberative Councils from Bank 15 (the people’s bank), and enforceability before the Courts, until reaching the Supreme Court of the Province of Buenos Aires.
In 2014 we convened all Carlos Casares’ dialysis patients, and together we formed a united group that presented the project to build a new NEPHROLOGY AND DIALYSIS CENTER before the Honorable Deliberative Council; we obtained an Ordinance that contemplated it like this. And as the months passed and the building was not started, seeing how the Municipality delayed the project and spent resources on other works, we presented ourselves before the Courts of Trenque Lauquen through a Collective Amparo. Litigating for 3 years, we managed to win the case before the Supreme Court of the Province of Buenos Aires. Setting an important precedent for the enforceability of social rights. There were 19 appeals, the neighbors participated with more than 500 signatures; nephrologists declared in public hearings, and the Legal Clinic of the University of Palermo presented itself as Amicus Curiae in support of the patients. The result: the construction of a new nephrology and dialysis center next to the hospital. An important advance in Carlos Casares.
In 2018, together with other lawyers from the firm, Javier Signetti, we presented signatures, involving citizens before the Deliberative Council itself in order to recover the Ophthalmology service that had been lost in Carlos Casares. Making it lend itself again.
-What is the main purpose of this neonatology project and how is it expected to address existing problems or challenges?
Today, faced with a pregnancy, a humble family cannot always travel to Junín or Trenque Lauquen to give birth; risky pregnancies are often warned and controlled. But so many others don’t. Very humble families, or who live in the countryside, far away, do not have the necessary time, transportation or resources. We urgently need to acquire the essential equipment to guarantee “the golden hours” of the newborn. A neonatal artificial respirator; a cradle, a multiparameter meter, and that a neonatologist be hired to settle in Carlos Casares, and that qualified nursing personnel be trained.
We present a project for the recognition of the Human Right to have a Neonatal Intermediate Therapy in Carlos Casares. Gathering more than 600 signatures from neighbors. And with the advice of different pediatricians and neonatologists, we at HCD capture a great need: timely care for babies at risk who cannot find quick referral to hospitals in the area that have this service.
-What are the key elements of this project that make it innovative?
Although it sounds obvious, for us to innovate means not losing human lives, ensuring the right to health and life of the most humble families. But especially it implies acting collectively. The parents of an unborn baby who do not have the necessary health care are generally not in a position to access justice. Which also intervenes after the event. Here, with this project, we unite the families, all the neighbors to act preventively, all together.
– How has the research and development of this project been carried out? Have specialized doctors been consulted, or has an exhaustive analysis of the relevant legislation and jurisprudence been carried out?
We have consulted with Neonatologists who advised us on the necessary equipment that we require to be acquired by the Municipality of Carlos Casares. On cases where an emergency occurs, such as premature babies, low weight, cases of respiratory distress, where premature newborns in which the air sacs of their lungs do not remain open; etc And about the unfortunate failures of the referral system in the province of Buenos Aires. Which is deficient, due to lack of beds in hospitals in the region that do have the neonatology service.
Regarding jurisprudence, we have already achieved a precedent for Carlos Casares regarding access to health, in the proceedings CUADRADO S/ AMPARO, the Buenos Aires Supreme Court basically said that: The Right to health is a priority in Carlos Casares and that investment in health matter deserves the maximum available resources.
-What is the long-term vision for this project and how is it expected to have a positive impact on society?
We insist on implementing a dissemination campaign to prevent risk pregnancies, with periodic controls, and active search for these pregnancies by the pediatric team of the Carlos Casares Hospital. If a high-risk pregnancy that requires high complexity is referred on time, the local service is not put into operation. But in case of not being warned, urgent action must be taken, having everything necessary in a Neonatal Intermediate Therapy (neonatal respirator, transport cradle, etc.) to receive the baby, assist it and refer it in a timely manner to a more complex center .
Contact information:
“ANDREOLI & ASSOCIATES, LAWYERS”
Phone: 1141689229
Instagram: @studio_andreoli
Mail: [email protected]
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