Factor-H offers a free-of-charge legal assistance service in Colombia, with the sole objective of facilitating access to the services, medicines and supplies that the Colombian State ensures to all patients affected by Huntington’s disease. Factor-H aims to assist all HD families with navigating the complex landscape of accessing medical benefits & medications, which often can be difficult to obtain from insurance companies.
In 2022, Factor-H hired Brayan Hernández to manage this program to represent the needs of the patients and their families. Brayan has been very successful in ensuring that patients get the medications they need, as well as ensuring that late-stage patients get adequate care, whenever possible.
The Legal Assistance program for families affected by Huntington’s disease is part of the comprehensive assistance offered by Factor-H from its strategic Advocacy pillar. The assistance aims to address the concerns and problems presented by the population of interest at the time of accessing the institutionality to guarantee their rights.
The program is aimed at families affected by Huntington’s disease, patients, at-risk family members, carers and members of the nuclear family. In 2023, Factor-H postulated 4 actions to protect the rights of individuals with HD, 1 application for immigration from a Venezuelan HD family who had arrived in Barranquilla, 5 instances of right of petition, to ensure access to medication and to cover the costs of transport to medical centers, 8 legal complaints after insurance companies stopped providing medications to patients, and 1 incident of contempt, a final resource to the judge, to achieve compliance with the judicial decision.
The legal assistance offered by the program is merely indicative. Factor-H and the personnel in charge of providing the assistance have no responsibility in relation to the outcome of the processes and actions that may be initiated.
Specific objectives
1. Provide free legal assistance to families affected by Huntington’s disease, patients, at-risk family members, caregivers, and household members, within a framework of respect, dignity and equality.
2. Influence the institutional framework to reduce administrative gaps that limit access to rights of the population of interest.
Our attorney Brayan Hernández is available to advise all Colombian families who have doubts or questions about their rights and ensure that the Colombian health system provides the sick and caregivers with the assistance that they are entitled to by law.
As part of this program, Brayan Hernández holds regular virtual and in-person meetings with HD affected families, to educate them about their rights and to provide them with a framework to claim what belongs to them by law in Colombia. He has also represented Factor-H at international meetings of the rare disease community, which have taken place in Colombia, working closely with the nonprofit organization Federation of Rare Diseases of Colombia (Fecoer).
Please understand your rights and we will work together so that all affected people have access to an adequate level of care and the support they are guaranteed by law in Colombia.
Watch a recent virtual presentation on the health legal aid program below (in Spanish). You can access a description of the slides shown below as a PDF as well (also in Spanish). You can contact Brayan at the email juridica@factor-h.org
PDF describing the principles of the Legal Assistance program in Colombia
English 
Spanish 
Portuguese