2023-11-07 20:28:00
Sources from different health entities assured PROFILE what the shortage of foreign currency for the import of inputsmedical equipment and price marking on the part of suppliers, are generating serious inconveniences for the supply in more than sensitive aspects, focused on medical diagnosis, treatment care and surgical emergencies.
They also warned that, if this situation continues, “the shortage is going to happen very soon” since, “if raw material does not enter, and the country must produce it in 60 or 90 daysin the coming months there will be shortages in oncological products and those of greater complexity“.
They also explained that Stock of endoprostheses or insulin pumps can be generated, for example, and marketed in the very short term., in about 96 hours maximum. However, there are pharmaceutical products that after its national manufacture,depend on an ANMAT evaluationwhich delays its circulation for at least three months.
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This takes place in the midst of a more than complex panorama regarding the US currencycon Central Bank reserves in the redthe exchange rate volatility As a result of this situation, in addition to the limitations on access and use of foreign currency, and the resulting import restrictions. All this is a “cultivation broth” which is affecting many sectors, although one of those that is suffering the most is health.
A problem that youIt has all the signs of getting worse as the days go by, in a system as sensitive as the toilet.
“We pay more expensive prices than in any country in the world”
Juan Manuel Ibargu is head of the Chamber of Ophthalmological Medicine, a sector whose 40% of inputs necessary to operate require importation. As detailed in dialogue with PERFIL, currently the prices “they are dollarized at the informal exchange rate, or Blue” given that “Suppliers claim to be unsure of the replacement cost. because They have not been able to make, according to them, the payments corresponding to the last eight months“.
This is significant if we consider that, last week, the National Secretariat of Commerce, headed by Matías Tombolini, and the Ministry of Health, led by Carla Vizzotti, They met with associations and chambers of the sectorto whom he promised the authorization of the equivalent of 10% of the sector’s annual importwhich is equivalent to approximately US$390 million, for pending payments and balance of debts.
According to figures from the National Government, with this 100% of the requested SIRA payments were authorizedfor a total of US$3,903 million. “This table allows us to begin to see how to resolve tensions. It also gives the possibility of listening, dialogue and recognizing what things we have to do better and what things are done,” said Tombolini. Although the data released after this “dialogue table” between the Government and the sector collides with the reported panorama.
“Our costs have skyrocketed to an almost unapproachable level. And, simultaneously, We have no response from the prepaid and social workswho do not recognize us, neither in time nor in form, the reality we go through“said the CAMEOF representative.
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Online, he stated that “while we suppliers They have shortened our payment timesand they have forced us to do it in cashthe providers They continue to pay us with unsustainable deadlines“, which is affecting not only businessmen and merchants, but also to health workerswhich, due to the shortage that this causes, have had to “turning to brands with less quality that do not provide guarantees of safety for them or for the patient.”
“That problem, that business risk, is transferred to the health provider, who has to assume the absolutely inflated costs in dollarsbecause today we are paying for some prostheses or elements necessary for surgery with prices More expensive than anywhere in the world. We have contacts with the United States and Europe and Some intraocular lenses and substances necessary to address retinal dismemberments have prices 30% higher than in London or Chicagowhich is crazy because they have international value,” he revealed.
These statements were made while, simultaneously, he The College of Pharmacists of the Province of Buenos Aires warned, through a statement, that hundreds of businesses will no longer serve with social and prepaid worksinterrupting sales of discounted medications “the emergency that the sector is going through”.
This happens for the same reasons that produce the lack of inputs: the difficulty in accessing foreign currencyand its scarcity, in addition to the response capacity of the providerswhose increases are frozen until December by the National Government and which would not be compensating for health needs.
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All this would be exacerbating the crisis in the sector reported in Augustwhen Ibarguren himself emphasized that “The situation is critical” and assured that, if there is no solution, “The health system is at risk” given that “This is practically bankrupting him.”
At that time, the situation was similar. although with the main focus on enabling imports. At the end of that month, after several weeks of complaints and after contact with the CUSTOMS Health Assistance DeskA, 40 SIRAs were released for intraocular lenses and materials necessary for cataract surgeries. This, after a promise from the Ministry of Health, the Central Bank and the Ministry of Commerce, together, to “order whatever is necessary” for what The entry of these supplies into the country will not be delayed again.
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“These efforts are no longer enough because the SIRAs They became a reflection of the problem. Hoy There is no check to know if the provider is telling me the truth or if they are speculating. What is a reality is that they are not being able to transfer payments abroad and evidently they do not have the capacity to replenish, something that ends up being transferred to prices“, said.
And looking to the future, and more specifically to 2024 with a new government to be defined via ballot, Ibarguren assured that the outlook is not encouraging. “Argentina has a structural problem and Neither of the two presidential candidates has any proposal in this regard.“he concluded.
The latter, related, above all, with the dollar stocksa topic that both the current head of the Treasury Palace and the referent of Freedom Advances would not solve, at least in a comprehensive manner, as they assured on repeated occasions, during the next year.
LR
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