NCO visited the Casa de Auxilio and had a conversation with its head and Secretary General of the Socialist Party of La Matanza, Ter Akopian, about the current situation, Milei’s government, and health policies.
Arturo, it’s been almost eight months since Javier Milei’s government began. How would you characterize it and what is your evaluation of this period of governance?
An absolute calamity. I am an architect and have always worked as a real estate agent, running a real estate agency that my late father started and now my family runs. In my agency, we sell property, private property. When I hear someone like our president say that private property is the primary organizer of a community, I question his moral integrity. When he tries to sell us examples of the most developed societies on the planet, the social organizer of those societies is not private property as he claims.
The difference is that in the societies he references, all have decent wages. In other words, he either does not understand or does not want to understand that the true organizer of a community is dignified work, and here, on the contrary, his policies have the consequence of lowering wages and destroying jobs, as we are seeing with the severe recession and layoffs in various areas of the state. He is destroying national industry and creating more poverty.
Now he has the Bases Law with chapters like RIGI that facilitates the entry of large capital with extraordinary benefits.
Yes. What worried me a lot was when the radical sectors voted for the Bases Law to grant governability, as they said. Let me give you an example: suppose you have a mountain and you own a gold mine in that mountain. With this Bases Law, I can now take your gold and give you 3%. In other words, for every 100 kilos of gold I extract from your mountain, I will give you three kilos, and I will keep the remaining 97. With RIGI, they approved the looting of our resources.
Why do you think these sectors did this?
These political sectors, who even criticized him for his measures, it’s incomprehensible, I cannot understand it. They played along in Congress. I am a bit surprised by a man like the radical senator, Martín Lousteau, who was an economist; he criticized a lot but, when the time came, he fell into line. The two Socialist deputies voted against it, along with the Union por la Patria caucus.
How is this economic situation, the recession, the rise in prices, and the crisis in prepaid health impacting the activities of Casa de Auxilio?
If I look at the information saying that there are 5,000 medical institutions on the brink of bankruptcy, I would say we are in a sort of limbo. We don’t have significant pressures of any kind. Yes, of course, we notice that people are struggling to pay. At the moment, we are stable and comfortable, meaning we can pay salaries, all obligations, and social charges. There have been other times when we were more comfortable; this is not one of those times.
Have you seen an increase in patients due to the crisis in social security?
No, I do believe it is changing, as some people can no longer afford to pay, and many who had private health insurance are now coming here, but in terms of the number of people, we are more or less the same.
What is your relationship with the municipality in the area of health?
Some time ago, the Secretary of Health, Alejandro Coria, visited us, and I must say they were politically correct and respectful. I told them, “Look, we have always had a very poor relationship. In a comment, he said, ‘You throw stones,’ and yes, we throw stones because you do things wrong, in our opinion. We have the right to express dissent. So now there seems to be at least a phase of more civility in the relationship.
Let me tell you something. We provide our own staff, paid out of the institution’s pocket, to carry out the National Vaccination Plan at Casa de Auxilio, and they did not even have the courtesy to bring the supplies; we had to pay for a cab to fetch the vaccine. After we told them that, they now send the vaccines with their own vehicle. Well, it’s a gesture.
Has there been any discussion about coordinating with municipal public health?
The Secretary of Health requested a meeting to start working on the coordination of public and private health. I think it’s an interesting initiative, which, in fact, the Socialists in Rosario implemented with a fantastic program that was awarded by the Pan American Health Organization as the best public health management. They had very well-oiled public-private coordination in health. So I think it’s a good initiative, and it remains to be seen what results come from it.
Health in Argentina is very fragmented, with many systems: national, provincial, municipal, social security, private, etc. And it is increasingly a commodity rather than a right.
Yes, it’s chaotic. What I am clear about is that at Casa de Auxilio, we are developing a health program to approach private health from a non-commercial perspective.
How would that work?
The best example is how a prepaid plan works. In fact, I have a prepaid plan, it doesn’t matter which one, but they are all the same. You pay, and I’ll speak in dollars, from 200 to 300 dollars monthly for 30 years. In some businesses, if you pay those amounts for that long, you get a mountain of money in return. With this prepaid system, paying for so long and such a high fee, they are ultimately waiting for you to leave or die.
The concept of health as a commodity does not fit into the health model. Health is a right, and in this, we adhere to the State. That is why the health program we are developing will be an alternative to prepaid plans.
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