The Directorate of Direct Assistance for Special Situations (DADSE), the area from which hundreds of people request medicines for serious, rare or other illnesses, whose delivery was cut off in December, It’s a quake. Last Wednesday Sergio Eloy Diazwho was in charge of the organization, He announced his resignation to the team under his charge. His departure occurs amidst a trail of protections from patients who need to continue their treatments., to which were added criminal complaints that even include President Javier Milei. One of the proposals is of a collective nature, presented by six organizations of patients and relatives who have found themselves, to make matters worse, that no judge wants to treat him with.
The basic problem
The DADSE’s function is to provide medication, prostheses and other medical supplies to people in vulnerable situations and without any medical coverage. Part of the demand is for oncological treatments, but also for many other pathologies that require drugs, in some cases at very high costs. The agency stopped making its regular deliveries to patients who were already registered and suspended new orders in December.
It was, at that time, under the orbit of the Ministry of Human Capital, which heads Sandra Pettovello. The excuse was that an internal audit had been done which would have shown irregularities in the acquisition of medications and payment to suppliers. But the system was not replaced by another, everything was paralyzed. The DADSE then passed into the orbit of the Ministry of Health, under Mario Russo, and some cases began to be made public of people who requested their treatments and others who died while waiting, so far seven. What everyone says is that at the beginning they collided with a sign saying that the agency was closed “for readjustment of systems and procedures.”. Those who called by phone were asked to do so again in two weeks, or more.
Current situation
At the Ministry of Health they told Page 12 that they began to expedite the calls for laboratories to present budgets, and that the process is published on the official website. They also confirmed Díaz’s resignation. When he announced his departure to DADSE employees, The official would have said that he could not continue working under the current conditions, but he did not elaborate. This newspaper tried to contact him but did not receive a response. What is visible to everyone are the protections, complaints and the people and various organizations that have made their desperation public.
But what is happening inside the DADSE is that those who work there – about 140 people – They find themselves in the painful and unfair situation of having to choose a handful of cases to expedite from hundreds. This last week, among 1900 files, they could select 300 to verify costs. In the summer there were hopefully 20. This is being done in a spaced manner, every 25 as indicated by those close to the organization, and it does not imply that the medication is delivered immediately. To the point that one of the employees called a patient to let him know that his order had arrived and He almost collapsed when he was told that he had died a few days earlier.
During the previous administration, people had their medication in 22 days. Now an additional complexity is that the decision to eliminate the decentralized offices that Social Development had in the provinces, which were 56, Those who do not live in the City of Buenos Aires do not know, because they do not have at hand, where to manage their medication. It must be taken into account that the process to require certain medication begins in the municipality or province and when they cannot provide it (it happens often) it must be passed to the DADSE.
What Pettovello reported is that some of the purchases were made through email accounts that were personal and did not bear the name of the laboratory or drugstore, even though they corresponded to one. He also raised delays. In itself, none of this proves any embezzlement or crime. Despite everything, the price verification system continues to be done the same, by e-mail, some laboratories have been added, and the only difference is that everything is also uploaded to the official Health page.
A peculiarity is that Díaz still did not have an appointment. The person who signed all the paperwork is the National Director of Direct Compensatory Assistance, who is above, Hernán Cohen Arazi, who does so as a university cardiologist. The DADSE would already have a new owner.
From the Ministry of Health they clarified to this newspaper that the resignation, in any case, “it will not generate new delays” in the procedures that are underway in the organization.
Protections and complaints
In recent months, individual protections were presented and there were judges who issued precautionary measures ordering the delivery of the medication. In many of the cases, incredibly, the ministry appealed regardless of the urgency, the circumstances or anything. Some courts made it mandatory to comply with the indication in question. Thus, some patients managed to return to their treatments. But not all of them went and others did not sue personally.
As the problem continued until now, six organizations decided to present a collective protection whose main demand is that the DADSE fulfill its function, that the necessary people be appointed and that it stop abandoning sick people. As if something were missing, it now has no director.
The presentation fell to administrative litigation judge Walter Lara Correa. The expectation was that he would issue a precautionary measure. But after a week he declared himself incompetent and sent the case to the Civil and Commercial jurisdiction. By draw it was the turn of court 2, in charge of Marcelo Bruno Dos Santos, who also did not want the file. It’s been almost two weeks. It is an urgent issue. But now we have to wait for the Administrative Litigation Chamber to define who is competent.
This same practice of passing files like a ball between different jurisdictions has also been seen with other proposals against the libertarian government, such as requests for unconstitutionality and nullity of DNU 70/2023 and others that question some of its articles. There were even few magistrates who advanced despite the rapid effects that the decree had on daily life. Everything, the problem of the DADSE also, has to do with the extreme adjustment that the Government applies and that judges could mitigate, but they do not do so.
In the criminal complaints in Comodoro Py – which point to Milei, Pettovello and Russo – it is requested that they be investigated for abandonment of person and for failure to fulfill their duties. Another point that they ask to clarify is what was done with the budget of 38,000 million that the DADSE took from Human Capital to Health.
More cuts
There are DADSE functions that are less known but no less essential and that are absolutely paralyzed. One is the delivery of medications that are considered low cost but are very expensive for someone who is unemployed or has a precarious job. (50 percent of the living and mobile wage), such as drugs used for epilepsy, for mental health or even medicated baby milk. This is no longer provided. Before, delivery was immediate. Prostheses and orthopedic elements are also not provided.
For children who must come from the provinces to undergo oncological or other treatments, they were given a place to live with the “Home accompanies you” plan. There are only two children who receive it from the previous administration. But nothing similar is provided for now. Something that is also not being carried out is the report on the housing of children who are about to be discharged in order to condition it if necessary.
Palliative care is also not provided for those who are perhaps going through the terminal stage of an illness and are suffering from unbearable pain. Care helps you go through this stage as best as possible. But the logic seems the same as what Foreign Minister Diana Mondino said the day on Mirtha Legrand’s program she questioned loans to retirees because they are going to die. The day that relatives and patients presented their protection for the medications at a conference in Congress, they said that they had problems with all governments, but “Never before has there been a desire for people to die like now.”
