The Lombardy Regional
Administrative Tribunal (TAR) on Wednesday ruled that making
patients pay out of pocket for donor fertility treatment is
"illegitimate".
The court thus upheld an appeal by the SOS Infertility
non-profit association against the region's decision not to
include the treatment in the public health service.
The court found that requiring couples to pay for donor
treatment is illegitimate when the same treatment is free for
couples using their own gametes.
This "violates the canon of rationality," the court wrote.
The region said it will appeal the decision.
Italian couples unable to conceive on their own were
forbidden to use donor sperm or eggs until the supreme
Constitutional Court overturned the ban in June 2014.
The justices struck it down because it unfairly penalized
low-income couples who could not travel abroad to seek
treatment.
In April this year, Italy's highest administrative court
suspended Lombardy's law demanding couples pay for donor gamete
fertility treatments out of pocket.
"Our choice was motivated by legislative and certainly not
ideological motivations," authorities said at the time. "The
treatment is not included in the health ministry's Essential
Health Care Levels (LEA). When it is, the region will do its
part".
Lombardy is the only region to request couples pay for the
whole treatment. In other regions, couples pay a contribution
that is a fraction of the overall cost, which ranges from 1,500
to 4,000 euros.
The court upheld petitions from two medical associations
that the regional law created inequality between people seeking
fertility treatment in different parts of Italy.
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