Soobramoney v Minister of Health, KwaZulu-Natal is an important judgement of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, delivered in 1997, and the first in which the court had to adjudicate on the universal constitutional right to medical treatment as against the problem of an under-resourced health care system. Facts Thiagraj Soobramoney was terminally ill, suffering from ischaemic heart disease and cerebrovascular disease, and of limited means. His kidneys had failed in 1996, and his condition had been diagnosed as irreversible. To survive even for a while, he required renal dialysis. After exhausting his funds on private providers, he sought the treatment free from the dialysis program of the Addington Hospital, a state-funded institution in Durban, which rejected him on the grounds that his condition did not fulfill the requirements for eligibility: that he be curable within a short period of time, and that, as for his kidney failure, he be eligible for a kidney transplant. (Addington, like many other South African hospitals, had a severe shortage of resources.) Soobramoney brought an application to the Durban High Court for an order that Addington give him the necessary treatment, citing section 27(3) Constitution of South Africa which gives everyone the right not to be "refused emergency medical treatment," and section 11 Constitution of South Africa insisting also on his constitutionally-protected right to life. Judgment The High Court dismissed his application, and he appealed to the Constitutional Court, which found Addington's standards to be reasonable and in his case fairly applied, and unanimously dismissed his appeal on the grounds that his non-treatment did not constitute a violation of his rights. While the court confirmed the state's constitutional duty to provide care, it found that, were Soobramoney to be given the full benefit of this, everyone else in his position would have to benefit as well; and that the state's limited resources could not accommodate such a burden. Biweekly renal dialysis, needed by Soobramoney to stay alive, would cost some R60,000 a year at the time (). To expand the programme to everyone who needed it would have a severe impact on the health budget, and would impinge on the state's other obligations. The court held, therefore, that the right to emergency medical treatment had only limited meaning: One who suffers a sudden catastrophe, which calls for immediate medical attention, should not be denied the available emergency services, and should not be turned away