Do courts have a role to play?
Siri Gloppen, professor at University of Bergen, Norway, co-authored the book ‘Litigating Health Rights: Can Courts Bring More Justice to Health?’ in 2011. On Sunday, November 11, she shared her answer to that question with Fellows: yes.
In many countries - not least in Latin American countries like Colombia, Costa Rica and Brazil, where hundreds of thousands of people go to court every year to claim access to health services - a large share of the cases are for high-cost medication for serious conditions, often with marginal gain. However, in other countries, such as India and South Africa public interest litigation has ensured poor and vulnerable groups access to vital drugs – including antiretrovirals for HIV/AIDS – and to preconditions of health, such as food and water.
Gloppen underscored that litigation can distort health care provision but in other cases , it can actually motivate the need for change by exposing weakness in the health care system.
"Individual litigation is not a solution but it can serve a useful purpose when the health care system doesn’t work," said Gloppen.
"People mistakenly assume that judges have the last word, but there’s rarely a last word," she explained.
"There has to be dialogue."
