“The façade is abandoned, but the professionals who work here are the best in the entire country”summarized Adrian Bruseceattending physician of the late shift of the Clinics Hospital Jose de San Martin.
Hours before, the anti-picketing protocol was not followed on 2300 Córdoba Avenue when thousands of people surrounded the hospital, which On average, it attends to about 1,000 queries per day and depends on the University of Buenos Aires (UBA)to complain about the impact of the budget adjustment.
With an interannual inflation close to 300%, the UBA – like the national higher education houses and many other areas of the State – received the same budget to operate in 2024 that it had last year, given that this year’s period was never approved in Congress. However, after the demonstration, the UBA campaign and before the federal university march on March 23, which is expected to be massive, tonight, the Government proposed increase the operating expenses of the institutions by 140% (70% adheres to the 70% already announced) to $14,224,732,213 monthly starting in May. In addition, they ordered a 70% increase for university hospitals.
The Government spread it as an agreement with the National Interuniversity Council (CIN), but sources from that body told LA NACIÓN that “there is no agreement” and the march next Tuesday is maintained.
According to the UBA, when declaring a budget emergency last week, The hospitals have not received any resources since Javier Milei’s administration began. The authorities They have been warning that the impact on hospitals is even greater because health inflation was higher. In fact, the director of the health center, Marcelo Melopointed out for example that the increase in the medications they use was 1000%.
The transfers of items to university hospitals had a drop of 72%, according to data collected by the Civil Association for Equality and Justice (ACIJ), which concluded that without an increase in funds, this would be the lowest university budget since 1997. when they started recording the variable.
There are no syringes, there is no alcohol, there is no gauze. The main impact, According to the professionals consulted by THE NATION during a tour of the building, is noticeable in the shortage of inputs. As well as in the performance of surgeries that were reduced by 30%. Problems with infrastructure or elevators that do not work date back a long time.
Missing
“The hospital needs supplies because it is running out of anything. “We cannot give a correct answer to patients”said to THE NATION Brusece. Like several of his colleagues, he highlighted that, in addition, in these months Assistance multiplied due to the arrival of patients without social work, which was estimated at 70%. “We must not forget that countless people enter periodically and people who had social work joined and had to leave it and ended up here,” he explained.
Until December, according to Melo, supplies were purchased every four months. “Today there is no budget. This happens, for example, with the contrast for diagnostic studies that increased significantly,” he indicated.
“You realize it in any of its sectors. In syringes he was very noticeable. In the lack of diapers too. “He started to feel stronger a month ago,” he told THE NATION Claudia, a nursing graduate who preferred to reserve her last name.
He also reported that they re-implemented a practice that they had applied during the pandemic due to the lack of knowledge of the new virus: Use a nightgown for 24 hours for a patient. “A paper tape is attached to them, the bed number and the day are indicated. And when it is finished using it, it is left hanging, it is used for 24 hours for a patient,” he explained.
“It would also be good if we could pay for the arrangements for the electromedical elements, for them to be from suppliers that we can later access. Many times during the Kirchner era, equipment was brought and then when it breaks it cannot be fixed. And today they are all stopped. “This is also politics.”he pointed.
Today, the hospital, which is one of the main training institutions for health professionals in the country where 1,500 students attend annually, is overwhelmed by the budget claim. “No to budget cuts. For public health, for non-tariff education, for our source of employment. Let’s defend the UBA,” read most of the posters plastered on the walls of the building.
Although to a much lesser extent, the demonstration was also replicated at the Ángel H. Roffo Oncology Institute, another health center that depends on the allocation assigned to the UBA, where they are also already rescheduling surgeries.
Medicines
According to Vanesa Bocoa nurse who has been working at the hospital for a year, the impact of the adjustment also extends to psychiatric medications. “Psychiatric medication is no longer provided, patients have to buy it”he indicated. “You can see it in the sheets, when patients are going to be hospitalized we ask them to bring them and they get indignant”he said.
They also cannot give the interned people the food they should. According to a worker from that area, she preferred not to give her name, for fear of being fired, since January there has been no more meat. They only use packaged for daycare. It coincided with the story of the residents who indicated that since December the menu they have received has been based on vegetables.
According to Melo, Surgeries were restricted to 30%, only for cases that cannot wait. “Today only those that have priority for malignant pathology, that is, cancer, are being done. Before we operated every day, today it is two or three times a week. We tell everyone else to come back in three or six months. and the truth is that it is not clear what is going to happen there either,” he told THE NATION Paula Martínezsurgical resident physician.
“It is very complicated for us to take a patient to surgery. They keep us behind. Traumatologists, too, constantly have their surgeries suspended, there is less anesthesia“, said Pablo, a resident who preferred not to give his last name and closed: “This has been bad for a long time. And it’s a day by day, we’ll see how it goes”.
Claims
Added to this scenario is the salary claim. With an accumulated inflation from December to February of 71.33%, the Government’s proposal in the teacher joint negotiations for February was an update of 16%, six points above what the negotiation in force at that time indicated. For March they offered 12%.
The employees of the Hospital de Clínicas also said that those who entered during the pandemic with contracts (orderlies, elevator operators) never moved to a permanent staff, and maintain their “Covid” contract, which is around $130,000. “They are guys who have worked in the Covid area directly. On the front line, like doctors. A doctor without assistance cannot do his job,” Brusece added.
Elisa Carrizo, who worked in the administrative area of the hospital and today is the general delegate of the Association of Staff of the University of Buenos Aires (Apuba)said to THE NATION: “One always fought her over the budget. We are used to tying with wire here, but it doesn’t work anymore. Let’s hope the visibility helps. You don’t want to cut off the street to bother the person in the car trying to get there, because as I say, It is a fight of poor against poor.”