(a) Availability. Functioning public health and health-care facilities, goods and services, as well as programmes, have to be available in sufficient quantity within the State party…. They will include … the underlying determinants of health, such as safe and potable drinking water and adequate sanitation facilities, hospitals, clinics and other health-related buildings, trained medical and professional personnel…. (b) Accessibility. Health facilities, goods and services have to be accessible to everyone without discrimination, within the jurisdiction of the State party. (c) Acceptability. All health facilities, goods and services must be respectful of medical ethics and culturally appropriate, … as well as being designed to respect confidentiality and improve the health status of those concerned; (d) Quality. As well as being culturally acceptable, health facilities, goods and services must also be scientifically and medically appropriate and of good quality. This requires, inter alia, skilled medical personnel, scientifically approved and unexpired drugs and 122 hospital equipment, safe and potable water, and adequate sanitation. 123. On the other part and in order to give more content to the right to health in connection with the rights to life and personal integrity, the Commission note that in comparative law it the essential components of the medical obligation have been developed, that is: integrality, opportunity and identity123. 2.2 Analysis of the facts of the case 124. The petitioners argued that the death of Mr. Vinicio Poblete Tapia was the result of medical negligence on the part of his attending physicians at the Hospital Sótero del Río for the following reasons: (i) the surgery was performed without the consent of the family members; (ii) after the surgery, Mr. Vinicio Antonio Poblete Vilches was discharged even though he was in critical health; (iii) when readmitted to the Hospital Sótero del Río, Mr. Vinicio Antonio Poblete Vilches was denied the care needed – he was not admitted to the Intensive Care Medical Unit, and he was not given access to an artificial respirator; and (iv) Mr. Poblete Vilches’s death was caused by an injection. 125. The first point is related to the analysis of informed consent in the previous section of this report. As for the fourth point, the Commission observes that it does not have sufficient information to make a pronouncement in this respect, without prejudice to the analysis in the section regarding the rights to judicial guarantees and judicial protection. The Commission underlines moreover that in the instant case it is not called to analyze the general compliance with the state obligations in relation to health for every person under its jurisdiction, but the case is regarding a concrete health situation of an individualized person and, therefore, the Commission will address the decision to discharge Mr. Poblete Vilches, as well as the treatment he received after being admitted to the hospital the second time. 2.2.1 As regards the decision to discharge Mr. Poblete Vilches 126. Mr. Poblete Vilches’s family members have consistently declared that after his first admission to the Hospital Sótero del Río, where a procedure was performed on him, he returned home with a very high fever, with fluid emanating from what they identified as “three wounds.” In addition, they have indicated that in response to the worsening of Mr. Poblete Vilches’s health 122 United Nations, Economic and Social Council, Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. General Comment No. 14. 123 Regarding the content of each element see: Consejo de Estado, Colombia, Third Section. Judgment of February 18, 2010; rad 18524; CP. Enrique Gil Botero. See also: Constitutional Court of Colombia. Judgment T- 536, 2007 (MP Humberto Antonio Sierra Porto), T- 421 of 2007 (MP Nilson Pinilla Pinilla), Constitutional Court. Judgment T- 635, 2001 (MP Manuel José Cepeda Espinosa). 25

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