Supersalud issued fines of 600 million pesos to EPS and IPS for denying the termination of the pregnancy

In Colombia, abortion is legal for three reasons determined by the Constitutional Court in 2006: when there is a risk to the life or physical and mental health of the woman, when there is a malformation of the fetus and when pregnancy is the product of rape or incest.

However, the Office of the Ombudsman and the Causa Justa movement, an organization that seeks to allow women to make independent and free decisions about their pregnancy, have denounced that, despite the three legal grounds for abortion, EPS does not deal with women who need the procedure and, conversely, makes it difficult for them to access these services.

In recent days it became known that the National Superintendency of Health has sanctioned several EPS and IPS for denying the abortion service to women who respect the causes. So far, sanctions have been imposed with fines totaling 629 million pesos.

The highest fine was filed on September 16 in Compensar for 298 million pesos, for not complying with the instructions of the Supersalud in which she asked for a report on women who arrived at EPS asking for the termination of the pregnancy. In February 2018, the complaint of a woman was known to whom this same entity had denied the IVE service, in addition to other procedures not included in the POS, a complaint that resulted in a fine of 234 million pesos for EPS.

Compensar is followed by the EPS Western Health Service, who received a fine of 64 million pesos for not responding to a request to terminate the pregnancy. Furthermore, since he did not deny with valid arguments for the Superintendency, the reason why the procedure was not performed on the woman.

The Magdalena Medio regional hospital instead received a fine of 32 million pesos for denying the abortion procedure to a woman who had been raped, a victim of the armed conflict.

And the IPS are no less, according to information reported by the Superintendence of Health, four of the nine IPS that have been checked on the treatment protocols for women victims of sexual violence have not complied with the necessary measures. These were: the San Francisco de Asís de Quibdó hospital, the San Rafael hospital in Ebéjico (Antioquia), the San Joaquín hospital (Nariño) and the Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes de Corozal hospital, in Sincelejo (Sucre). Apparently they did not even use emergency contraception in case of a risk of pregnancy and did not inform the victims about psychological help after the trauma.

So far in 2020, the Superintendency has reported receiving 57 complaints from women who have been denied voluntary termination of pregnancy. According to the institution, 100% of complaints have been processed and resolved. However, the response time was not optimal as many of the EPS took up to 66 days to resolve which is bad for women.

In November 2020 it was confirmed that the national government will not support the Just Cause movement’s request. The petition sent by the group calls for the total decriminalization of abortion in Colombia. However, the Ministry of Justice replied that there is no reason to go a step further by judicial means as the competence to decriminalize abortion rests with Congress.

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