The regional health fund in Plovdiv was condemned for discrimination by the man with breast cancer, who did not receive free medicine for his disease because he is not a woman. DJ Ivan won the case brought before the Administrative Court in the city, it was reported Would you you.
The unusual case became known at the beginning of the summer. DJ Ivan learned she had breast cancer seven years ago. He was operated on in Sofia and periodically goes for chemotherapy. A few months ago, the doctors prescribed him an expensive injection, which is covered by the NHS and should replace the monthly chemotherapy. However, the Plovdiv Hospital refused to issue the drug on the grounds that the patient was not a woman.
The injection costs about BGN 500 per month. The doctors in Sofia found Ivan’s first dose from another patient and told him that in most cases the health fund refused to issue the medicine for men. After the case made headlines, changes to pharmacotherapy guidelines were voted on to bring the treatment of breast cancer in men on par with that in women. And after that, however, the Plovdiv Medical Center continued to refuse treatment to Ivan Andreev.
“I feel like a winner. I’m not feeling euphoric, I’m not looking for this effect, the idea is to show the system that things are not as they should be,” Ivan Andreev commented on the outcome.
According to judge Decho Dechev, the decision of the cash register for Andreev was issued in gross violation of the Health Act and the Act on Protection from Discrimination.
The law prohibits discrimination on any grounds, the court recalled. “From the evidence in the case, it is established that Andreev was denied treatment only because he does not fall into one of the mandatory (according to the fund) criteria (…), because he is not “postmenopausal” (which is absurd) and he is a man (which is discrimination because it is a disease that occurs in both sexes and is treated in the same way),” the court wrote. And he adds that in the pharmacotherapeutic manual of medical oncology, it is explicitly stated that breast carcinoma in men is treated analogously to that in women.
The health law states that the protection of citizens’ health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being is a national priority and is guaranteed by the state through the application of the following principles: equality in the use of health services; provision of affordable and quality health care, with priority for children, pregnant women and mothers of children up to one year old; priority of health promotion and integrated disease prevention; prevention and reduction of the risk to citizens’ health from the adverse impact of environmental factors; special health protection for children, pregnant women, mothers of children up to one year old and persons with physical disabilities and mental disorders; state participation in financing activities aimed at protecting citizens’ health. In the case of Andreev, the first of these principles has been violated, according to the court decision, which “Sega” has seen.
The very fact that the regulation was subsequently amended to adopt a pharmacotherapeutic guideline in medical oncology for the treatment of male breast carcinoma, “suggests in itself that the state, through its authorities, has already recognized that such discriminatory treatment was present “, adds the judge and returns Andreev’s file to the health insurance fund in Plovdiv for a new ruling.
The decision of the Administrative Court is not final and can be challenged before the Supreme Administrative Court.
Ivan’s case was used in the political battle over the management of the NHS in the summer. In an attempt to spur the election of a governor, GERB MP Prof. Kostadin Angelov asked his colleagues to hurry up to resolve the issue of Andreev’s treatment. This was pure demagoguery, since the decision is not at all in the hands of the manager of the NHIF, as was seen from the subsequent development of events.
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2023-10-27 21:17:20
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