Ley Estatutaria 1751 de 2015: health as a fundamental right
- Law
Statutory Law 1751 of 2015 recognises health as a fundamental, autonomous right and sets its principles and patients' rights and duties.
What it is
Statutory Law 1751 of 2015 (16 February) regulates the fundamental right to health. It declares it autonomous and inalienable, for individuals and communities, and sets its elements and principles, people's rights and duties, comprehensiveness, the ban on refusing emergency care, the criteria for excluding services from public funding, and professional autonomy. Before it was signed, the Constitutional Court reviewed the bill in Ruling C-313 of 2014.
Key articles
- Art. 2: the fundamental right to health is autonomous and inalienable; it includes timely, effective, quality access and is an essential public service under State direction.
- Art. 6: essential elements: availability, acceptability, accessibility, quality and professional competence; and principles such as universality, pro homine, equity, continuity, timeliness, progressiveness, free choice, sustainability, solidarity and efficiency, among others.
- Art. 8: comprehensiveness: services are provided in full; when the scope of a service is in doubt, it is taken to include all its essential elements.
- Art. 10: rights (emergency care without prior payment, information to decide, no one forced to receive treatment against their will, confidential record with a free copy, privacy) and duties (self-care, good use of resources, good faith, among others).
- Art. 14: emergency care needs no administrative authorisation between provider and insurer.
- Art. 15: public funds do not pay for services that are cosmetic or luxury, without evidence of safety, efficacy or effectiveness, unauthorised, experimental or that must be provided abroad; exclusion follows a public, participatory technical-scientific procedure.
- Art. 17: professionals' autonomy to decide diagnosis and treatment, within ethics, rationality and evidence; its paragraph bans gifts from industry to professionals.
In clinical practice
- No emergency care depends on documents, payments or authorisations (arts. 10, letter b, and 14).
- The treating doctor decides with autonomy; administrative pressure not to order what is needed is forbidden and sanctioned (art. 17).
- Once a treatment has started, it may not be stopped for administrative or financial reasons (art. 6, continuity).
Status and official text
- Official text checked on 2026-11-05 on funcionpublica.gov.co and in the status notes of secretariasenado.gov.co.
- Ruling C-313 of 2014 (29 May): prior review of the bill. It struck, among others, the paragraph of art. 8, parts of continuity and timeliness (art. 6), of letter q and paragraph 1 of art. 10, and of art. 14; it made art. 1 and paragraph 2 of art. 15 conditional on not weakening the tutela action.
- On art. 16 (case conferences to settle disagreements), the Court held that it does not apply when there is a risk to the patient's life or integrity and that the procedure may not exceed seven days.
- Ruling C-634 of 2015 upheld the law against procedural objections. It develops art. 49 of the Constitution; the ordinary laws of the system (Law 100 of 1993 and its reforms) must be read in line with it.
Test yourself
Think of the answer, then tap the question to see it.
What are the essential elements of the right to health under art. 6 of Law 1751 of 2015?
Availability, acceptability, accessibility, and quality and professional competence.
Which criteria in art. 15 of Law 1751 exclude a service from public funding?
A cosmetic or luxury purpose; no evidence of safety, efficacy or clinical effectiveness; unauthorised use; experimental phase; or having to be provided abroad.
Which ruling reviewed the constitutionality of Statutory Law 1751 before it was signed?
Ruling C-313 of 2014 of the Constitutional Court, which upheld most of it, struck some parts and made others conditional.
What does art. 17 of Law 1751 protect?
Professionals' autonomy to decide diagnosis and treatment, within ethics, rationality and evidence; it forbids pressure and gifts from industry.
Connections
Educational content on ethics and health law; not legal advice. Laws and case law change: each page links the official text and says when it was last checked. For a real case, read the text in force and ask a lawyer or the medical ethics tribunal.
Sources: Ley Estatutaria 1751 de 2015, por medio de la cual se regula el derecho fundamental a la salud (Función Pública, Gestor Normativo, 2015); Sentencia C-313 de 2014, review of the statutory health bill (Corte Constitucional de Colombia, 2014).
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Representative model, for educational purposes only.