Health and Human Rights

Manuscript Peer Review Outcome Form – Editorial Committee Decision

Manuscript title: Sanction to the Chilean public health system for not providing basic,
necessary and urgent services to the elderly. Case Poblete Vilches and others Vs Chile (2018).
Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Recommendation:

Revise and resubmit

18 February 2021

Dear Angela Arenas Massa,

We have now received two positive reviews of your paper, and the comments from these
reviewers follow below.

The editors have also read and considered your paper, and we have additional comments that
we ask you to take into consideration when undertaking revisions. Firstly, the English
language in the paper is difficult to follow and not quite at a publication standard. We would
ask you to consider having an editor go through your final version to ensure it is adequate
before re-submitting.

Our readership is broad, including people in both the health and legal sectors. We think the
material and method section in particular, but also the whole paper, needs to be better
explained for non-legal, non Latin American readers. Please also define terms such as ACHR.

We also note that the reference style is incorrect for the HHRJ. We use a numeric sequential
system, with only one reference number per sentence, placed at the end of the sentence, after
the period, and superscripted. If you have multiple citations for that sentence, they are
combined under the one endnote in the refence section. The style in the references can be
found here, from page 17:
https://cdn1.sph.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2469/2019/12/HHR-EDITORIAL-
STYLE-GUIDE_2019-1.pdf

If possible, we would like to receive the revised paper within four weeks, by 18 March. Do
get back to us if you have any questions at all.

With kind regards

Carmel Williams
Executive Editor
Health and Human Rights Journal

Reviewer One:

The Inter-American Court ruled about procedural steps, relating to the health and public
policies sector. It is interesting to observe that this Court decision constitutes, in principle, a
new paradigm related to the control and tracking of sanitary procedures, which seeks to
reduce the asymmetry that exists from the structural and cultural reality in favor of a
particularly vulnerable population whom the Court recognizes require extra protection. A case
of a violation, is interpreted a contrario sensu as a particularly serious matter. In addition, the
Court comments in paragraph 139 “Además resulta inaceptable la falsificación del
consentimiento de los familiares y la falta de información clara y accesible sobre la condición
del paciente”. This case, for the International judicature, is a deficiency in the monitoring and
internal follow-up of sanitary procedures. In this regard is considered a severe fault to the lex
artis medica.

Therefore, it is important to consider the Court pronouncement in paragraph 241°, Chapter

VIII) Reparaciones, iii) Protección integral a las personas mayores: “Finalmente, la Corte
dispone que el Estado adopte las medidas necesarias, a fin de diseñar una política general de
protección integral a las personas mayores, de conformidad con los estándares en la materia.
Para ello, el Estado deberá implementar la misma durante el plazo de tres años, a partir de la
notificación de la Sentencia”. For all these reasons, will be essential to identify the practical
effects of the instruction having completed the deadline for its implementation, in 2021.

Reviewer Two:

On page 3, line 4, it says (2.b); it should say (2.a).

On page 6, line, 13, it says "theological elements"; it should perhaps say teleological
elements?
On page 6, line 22, it says "subjective genetic argument"; perhaps the adjective is not
"genetic", but "original"?
Perhaps the section "V. Challenges from a gerontological perspective" would be better if it is
divided in two, where the last part is "conclusions".

It could be improved if the conclusions include the legal limitations of the ruling, indicated by
the author in the body of the manuscript: e.g.: "Therefore, the Inter-American Court of
Human Rights does not act within its jurisdiction if it uses extra-systemic arguments, such as
the case of the summons without justification from the European Court of Human Rights
regarding the right to life and physical integrity of the elderly person. This bad practice does
not comply with the international standards of the system, nor with the cultural realities of the
continent." p 6

The bibliography should be reviewed so that all of it is in the same citation format.