Javier Milei’s management in health continues to accumulate criticism. This time, it was The BMJ (British Medical Journal), a weekly UK magazine published by the British Medical Associationthe one in charge of pointing out the disaster that the application of the free market is generating in the country.
In an article titled “Argentina’s healthcare is crumbling under the worst dengue epidemic in its history and Milei’s presidency,” The British media described the Ministry of Health led by Mario Russo as a “zombie” and assured that the first months of the La Libertad Avanza Government “have been catastrophic.”
Among the data that he marked as relevant to highlight the health crisis that Argentina is going through, he mentioned that “Hundreds of cancer patients were left without treatment” and that a “dismantling of academic and scientific infrastructure” is taking place.
“Lowering inflation and reducing the fiscal deficit are the number one priorities of Milei and his right-wing libertarian party, La Libertad Avanza. Milei, a former economist, television panelist and sexual advisorhas reiterated its goal of eliminating universal health care,” the publication warned.
The Government, the article continued, “is committed to reducing the power of state departments.” An example, he indicated, “is the Directorate of Direct Attention to Special Situations (DADSE)a state institution that provides subsidies to patients with diseases such as cancer, hemophilia or autoimmune diseases, who cannot otherwise afford treatment.”
“had to wait until March 19, 100 days after Milei took office, to appoint a new owner of DADSE,” the British magazine was surprised. And it continued: “Services were suspended for three months amid accusations of the new government that DADSE officials had been embezzling funds. The status of the address remains unclear. “The official medical benefit application process has been scrapped, but there has been no information for patients about what, if anything, has replaced it.”
The lapidary report also includes a criticism of the defunding that the Government of La Libertad is carrying out is advancing in different areas, including education and scienceas well as the inaction of the Ministry of Health in the face of the “worst dengue outbreak in its history.”
“There is no leadership. There is no plan to mitigate the outbreak, nor any communication, nor measures to control the mosquitoes that transmit the virus. This lack of action affects coordination in the provinces. There is no support for hydration units, for example, or mosquito nets for the sick,” Tomás Orduna, former head of tropical medicine and travel medicine at the Muñiz Hospital in Buenos Aires, told the British media, which contacted the Ministry. of Health but did not receive a response.
In that sense, the article also questioned the attitude taken by the Milei Government towards the dengue vaccine produced by the Japanese pharmaceutical company Takeda and approved for use in Argentina in April 2023. “Despite the epidemic, presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni told the media on March 4 that ‘the effectiveness of the vaccine is not proven.’ This statement was questioned by the National Immunization Committeean independent committee of experts that depends on the Ministry of Health, who said that its effectiveness had been demonstrated in clinical trials,” the British media stressed.
According to the latest epidemiological bulletin from the Ministry of Health, there have been 270 deaths and 379,341 cases of dengue so far in 2024. “The accumulated cases until week 16 represent 3.25 times more than what was registered in the same period of the previous season 2022/2023 and 9.24 times more than what was registered in the same period of 2019/2020,” says the bulletin, which indicates that the highest number of infections occurred in the Center region, followed by the NOA and the NEA.
