Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 1989, published 76th ILC session (1989)

Medical Care and Sickness Benefits Convention, 1969 (No. 130) - Uruguay (Ratification: 1973)

The Committee notes the information supplied by the Government in reply to its previous comments and wishes to point out the following:

1. Part II of the Convention (Medical care). (a) Article 10 (Protected persons). The Committee notes, from the statistics supplied in the report, that the percentages prescribed by the Convention for the scope of sickness insurance are nor yet attained in Uruguay. Indeed, this instrument provides that the beneficiaries of such insurance are to be all employees, including apprentices, and the wives and children of such employees; or prescribed classes of the economically active population, constituting not less than 75 per cent of the whole economically active population, and the wives and children of persons of the said classes; or prescribed classes of residents constituting not less than 75 per cent of all residents. The Committee has, however, examined the legislative texts attached to the report and notes that some progress has been achieved, particularly with regard to the possibility of affiliation to the Collective Medical Assistance Institute (IAMC), the extension of sickness insurance to enterprises employing one worker only and the introduction of procedures that will make it possible for the sickness insurance to progressively extend coverage to civil servants. The Committee also notes the creation of the "Health Services Administration" by virtue of Act No. 15.903 of 1987 and requests the Government to supply detailed information in its next report on the working of that Administration in practice and the nature and scope of the medical care provided. The Committee also hopes that the Government will make every effort to extend the coverage of sickness insurance to other categories of employees or persons in the active population, so as, in this respect, to give effect to the Convention, which has been ratified for several years already. (Please also supply in all future reports the statistical data requested, under the above Article, by the report form on this Convention.)

(b) Articles 12 and 16. For a number of years, the Committee has been requesting the Government to take the necessary measures to give full effect to the above Articles of the Convention, which provide respectively that persons who are in receipt of benefits for invalidity, old age, death of the bread-winner or unemployment and, where appropriate, the wives and children of such persons, shall continue to be protected in respect of medical care and medical prevention, and that beneficiaries who cease to belong to the categories of persons protected, shall continue to be entitled to medical care, in case of sickness which started while they belonged to the said categories, for a period of not less than 26 weeks (and for as long as they receive sickness benefit); the above provisions also provide that the duration of medical benefit shall be extended for prescribed diseases recognised as entailing prolonged care. In its last report, the Government makes no mention of progress being achieved in the implementation of the above provisions of the Convention; it indicates, however, that the question of establishing a sickness insurance scheme meeting the requirements of the Convention is under examination. The Committee therefore trusts that the Government will not fail to supply information in its next report on the outcome of this examination and on the measures taken in this respect.

2. Part III (Sickness benefit). (a) Article 19 (Protected persons). See comments under Article 10 above.

(b) Article 22. (Amount of sickness benefit). For a number of years, the Committee has been requesting the Government to supply the statistics requested in the report form on this Convention, under Article 22, so that it can assess whether the amount of the sickness benefit payable to a standard beneficiary (a man with a wife and two children) corresponds to the rate prescribed by the Convention (60 per cent) where the previous earnings of the beneficiary are equal to or lower than the wage of a skilled manual male employee (in view of the fact that national legislation establishes a maximum amount to be taken into account for the calculation of these benefits). The Committee notes that, with the exception of the texts of Decree No. 76/988, communicated with the report, which contains indications on the amounts of wages applicable to the various categories of workers, the Government has not supplied any of the statistics requested. The Committee can only, therefore, renew its request and hope that the next report will contain the data in question.