If it was already a delicate patient, the Argentine health system happened, in recent weeks, to have a reserved prognosis. Through Decree 1138/24 published in the Official Gazette of the Argentine Republic (Bora) the last day of last year, the structure of the Ministry of Health of the Nation. January 15 and through a post published in the social network Xthe same agency reported that “The decision was made not to renew 1,400 contacts” Under the argument of efficiency, the ruling party has already begun to Reduce personnel in national hospitals and decentralized organizations without specifying how that will impact the demand and health care of the population.
The public health system It serves about 27 percent of the population that is not affiliated with a social work or a private provider. Given the constant increase that the latter are applying to their affiliates and the decrease in the number of formal workers, the proportion of Argentines who will resort to free public health will be (expected) superior. A total of 54 prepaid medicine companies were discharged, and the calculations indicate that the sector lost between 4% and 6% of its affiliates only as of November 2024.
Although an official list of hospitals and structures that will lose workers were not announced, it was learned that non -renovations of contracts will be given (and are already being given) at the same headquarters of the National Ministry of Health, in the National Cancer Institute (Inc), in the Superintendence of Health Servicesin the National Laboratories and Health Institutes (Anlis-Malbrán), in the Pamiin it Spanish Hospital (It depends on the latter), and in national hospitals Posadas, Bonaparte, Sommer, René Favaloro and High accountamong other units.
For its part, the Minister of Health of the Province of Buenos Aires, Nicolás KreplakHe explained that 15 essential areas were closed for health system management, together with coordination: among others, gender and diversity addresses, health research, integration of the health system, medical equipment and health architecture, appropriate use of antimicrobial , zoonosis, tuberculosis and leprosy, viral hepatitis, integration of health information and epidemiological surveillance by laboratories.
This caused the immediate reaction of specialists and epidemiologists. The Board of Directors of the Argentine Society of Infectology (Sadi) announced a statement, in which they report that “we will request a meeting to Mtro. of health of the nation on the areas of communicable diseases, linked to preserve its federal, equal role in access to health, retaining its functions, its professional, scientific and technical quality ”. And he adds that “on 1/14/25, note was sent to the National Directorate of Transmissible Diseases to know scope and impact that could occur by the modification of the organization chart of the Ministry of Health of the Nation in the coordinations of zoonoses, tuberculosis and leprosy, Viral hepatitis and appropriate use of antimicrobials. Contact was established with other scientific societies in pursuit of joint actions on the subject ”.
Adjust how far?
NEWS He agreed to the list of personnel whose contract was only renewed between 1st and January 31 at the Ministry of Health and that serves in its large majority in the Vaccine addresses and HIV. Sources from the Ministry affirmed to the magazine that not all these people will be outside the body, but what alerted experts in vaccinology and HIV is that 61 percent of those 210 employees are Specialized and Technical Personnel. “Ministry programs are also guaranteed. The functions of closed coordination and addresses are covered by the upper structure. They are not eliminated ”, They said from the ministry to this magazine. And then the doubt arises of how the adjustment of technical personnel may not influence the necessary functioning of the ministry in such sensitive areas. Doesn’t this imply a budget reduction and a future lack of experts who cover the entire territory in their different functions?
From the ministry They claim that there will be no budget reduction“What there will be is a saving of the expenditure of about 1.3 billion pesos, product that there is less hierarchical structure, which was reduced by approximately 30%. The programs and their operation are guaranteed. ” Experts Sanitary and preventable diseases do not agree With this statement because, according to your experience, if the adjustment is of technical pictures there is no way to continue with the tasks properly. “Working each program of the Ministry of Health in coordination with the provincial programs, each with its specificity, is very complex, both for the volume of planning and actions that imply, and by the diversity involved. We cannot run out of technical personnel to carry out these tasks, the shrinking will imply that it does not reach the deadlines to fulfill in time and form with the actions and obligations that the programs have, ”explains an expert who prefers to keep in reserve Your name.
He national deputy Pablo Yedlin, Doctor and former Public Health Minister of Tucumán between 2007 and 2015, presented a resolution project requesting the National Executive Power (PEN) that through the Ministry of Health, “Report regarding the non -renewal of contracts of the personnel of the National Directorate of Immunoprevenable Diseases and the National Directorate of HIV and the consequent emptying and/or closing that can occur from those areas” .
“I would like to highlight as an example, some health indicators that we have in our country and that make more concern the dismantling of the areas that have those efforts under their responsibilities,” he tells news. One to consider are the Low vaccination coverage both globally in Argentina and in the provinces, particularly as the effect of the PostPandemia. In the case the case of the tuberculosisduring the year 2023 the notification of cases increased by 10.3% compared to 2022. In addition, Argentina is part of the high -loading countries of disease of disease leprosy. With regard to layoffs at the National Cancer Institute, the truth is that there are large inter -jursdictional differences in the implementation and results of different oncology programs, for example the provinces of Misiones and Formosa They were found in the highest quintile of mortality by Cervical cancer and by cervical cancer”
Among the medical sectors that announced their concern, we can mention the Guest Foundationthat in a statement stressed that the HIV address “Buy Tests, Reagents and Antiretrovirals (ARV) for thousands of people with HIV and tuberculosis that are attended in the public system. In addition, it attends problems with social works and prepaid, performs campaigns and analyzes data ”, and warned that the closure of these areas would not only represent a sanitary setback, but also a violation of international commitments. “It would be breach of international law, in addition to an unconstitutional and anti -conventional action,” explains the document, which cites article 12 of the International Pact of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and that guarantees the right to health.
Yedlin reviews: “Missing for mothers with HIV are missing, and last year there were no reagents to detect HIV. The Vaccine Program of the Ministry does not take care of vaccines, but when removing program personnel is running out of experts to evaluate possible outbreaks, which there is always, as there was already in the case of the Legionella and the hemorrhagic fever, and to coordinate what happens in the provinces ”. And completes the panorama: “Because the capacities are totally and it is essential that the national government coordinate these needs. Health cannot be transferred to the provinces. And that is the intention. ”
Calendar
From the Ministry they affirm that Vaccines for 2025 included in the national vaccination calendar They are already boughtwhich renegotiated the contract for the vaccine against COVID-19 With the laboratory Pfizer (not with the Cassáá laboratory, which co-participated together with the CONICET in the development of the Argentine Vaccine against COVID-19) and what Dengue vaccine will not be included in the calendar: “The entire vaccination campaign of this year is completely guaranteed.”
Why this decision regarding the dengue vaccine? Because, they argue from the Ministry, “the National Immunizations Commission (Conain) does not recommend vaccination at out of outbreak. And more studies are expected to see scope.” To tell the truth, at the end of March 2024 the Conain had recommended to start with a focused implementation strategy according to jurisdictions and age groups. In the province of Santa Fe, for example, it has been applied in prioritized territories, for adolescents from 15 to 19 years of age and for health personnel, firefighters and police between 20 and 39 years. In the province of Buenos Aires, vaccine began in the last quarter of 2024 AA who already had dengue, between 15 and 59 years and began with the second dose for those who have completed three months after the first.
Hospitals and medications
From Nation Health they say that tenders for the vaccination campaign of next year are already being planned. And they warn: “It may be that the Remedy plan If some modification suffers because, as a governing body, the Ministry considers that health and education are attributions that the provinces never delegated to the nation and therefore is an objective of this government to reduce the giant and farm structure that the Ministry of Health It has regarding the provinces and that it is the provinces that must execute their health programs in their territories. But it is a process that is chatting, the objective is to indicate to the provinces what these inputs or medications are that the National State will stop providing so that the second half of this year or next year the provinces begin to acquire them ”
As for National HospitalsThe objective of the Ministry of Health is that the provinces be the ones that carry out health policies and attention in their territory, except in the case of the claw, the objective is that the others be transferred to the jurisdictions. If the provinces refuse or cannot take charge, in the Ministry “possibilities are being evaluated from the refusal.” In the facts, neither CABA nor PBA nor Santa Cruz took the hospitals mentioned before and we will have to see what those “possibilities” imply in the National Health Agency. The entrance of private companies? Under what conditions? With what rights, obligations, investments?
Rarying The lessons left by the pandemic -And it was necessary for the State to strengthen the health system to provide care and carry out the most important vaccination campaign that you have memory- the ministry in charge of Mario Lugonesdecides to dismantle benefits and services. Started the weakest: mental health, represented by the Laura Bonaparte Hospitalthat today faces 200 layoffs and an intervention by the neurosurgeon Mariano Pirozzowhich previously served as Director of Medical Care and Treatment of the National Hospital “Doctor Baldomero Sommer”which also had more than one hundred dismissals in this January 2025.
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