Article 16: Right to enjoy the best attainable state of physical and mental health 267. The right to health is a constitutional right (Article 67 of the Constitution (1976), Article (54 of t he 1996 Constitution): “all citizens are entitled to the protection of thei r heal t h ; the State shall provide for the prevention and the fight against epidemic and endemic diseases”. The legislation has since 1993 placed the responsibility on the State to bear the healthcare expenses of deprived and uninsured persons. The health of women has been identified as a priority in the health policies and programmes. Law No. 85-05 on the promotion a n d protection o f h e a l t h p r o v i d e s f o r : - maternal and child protection measures (Art 67 to 75); - health protection measures in educational institutions (Art 77 to 82); - family planning designed to ensure a harmonious family balance and to preserve the life and health of the mother and child. - Access to healthcare: 268. Regarding access to healthcare, since independence, the national health system has been founded on the predominance of the public sector and the provision of both preventive and curative care free of charge. In the aftermath of Alma Atta, Ordinance No. 73-65 of 28 December 1973 instituted free healthcare, first of all to translate the political will at the highest level, especially as a pre-requisite and the determinant of health for all Algerians as a means of ensuring equity in access to healthcare in accordance with national legislation. 269. The integration of primary healthcare was expressed by the organisation of a national healthcare system and its development around the health sector as the basic entity incorporating light infrastructural facilities, the polyclinic, health centre and treatment rooms around the hospital. This approach led to the development of the basic healthcare infrastructure concerning the health units and the teaching hospitals and a range of basic integrated services. 270. Thanks to Executive Decree No. 07-140 of 19 May 2007, a restructuring was undertaken at the health-care levels revolving around Public Teaching Hospitals and Polyclinics by developing them into local public health-care establishments under the said Decree. Thus, 271 public healthcare establishments were brought on stream. 271. The objective is to ensure qualitative improvement of basic health-care by optimizing the technical level of local public health-care establishments through the incorporation of basic specialized services and the creation of conditions for hierarchical organization of the levels of intervention. This Decree also provided financial empowerment for these establishments to ensure a more equitable distribution of financial resources for local health establishments. 272. In recent years, the consolidation of the health achievements and the attainment of the projected objectives have justified the framework of broad reforms undertaken. The objectives of the reform are: to improve the quality of services, ensure efficiency of the health-care establishments and the national health system in general; minimize the disparities and inequalities between the regions and the wilayas. These regions benefit from the support plans and the upturn in the country’s economic growth and the health -care sector development programme in the area of new infrastructure and human resources involving the posting of specialists, in particular to the four basic specialized areas, namely, obstetrical gynaecology, paediatrics, general surgery and internal medicine . 273. The health sector reforms focused on the issue of financing healthcare and the “patient”, resulted particularly in the: 44