On Wednesday, the Ministry of Health published a statement on social networks stating that 1,400 contracts of workers from different national hospitals, PAMI and the Ministry of Health itself will not be renewed. A measure that adds to the closure of fifteen directorates of the Lugones portfolio, among which are the Coordination of Viral Hepatitis, and that of Tuberculosis and Leprosy.
Under the name of “resource optimization,” the Milei government seeks to advance its plan to attack public health, which last year was expressed with the attempted closure of the Bonaparte Hospital, layoffs at Posadas, budget and salary cuts. throughout health, measures that were responded to by mobilizations of thousands of hospital workers and resident doctors throughout the Capital and Greater Buenos Aires.
Faced with the more than 1,400 layoffs announced by the Minister of Health, which includes workers from national hospitals and key research institutes, it is urgent that all unions in the health sector unite in a fighting plan in defense of public health! pic.twitter.com/s68EaqabgF
— @LauCano (@LauCano10) January 15, 2025
During the day, more than 130 layoffs occurred at the Baldomero Sommer Hospital, located in General Rodríguez, province of Buenos Aires. The government talks about “cuts in political positions,” while laying off doctors, nurses, nutritionists, orderlies, administrators, social workers, imaging technicians, teaching and research technicians, electromedicine, among other sectors. These are workers who were hired under precarious modalities encouraged by all governments, in some cases with 30 years of seniority and close to retirement. At night, notifications of layoffs also began to arrive for workers at the Bonaparte Hospital, the only one nationwide specialized in mental health and addictions. In response to the announcements, they declared themselves in a state of permanent alert, calling for support to resist and defend public health.
While the notifications arrive, the CGT continues to let these measures pass in complicity with the Milei government. Given these attacks against access to health for the popular sectors, it is urgent that all unions in the sector unite in a plan to fight for the defense of public health. The CTA has influence in state, health and teacher unions, but it is not promoting a fight at the level of the attack that is growing day by day. To begin with, it would have to call assemblies, not only of its members but as unified as possible, and a coordinated fight of all the sectors attacked. That is what we have been demanding in every conflict we are in.
The speeches from the ruling party with proposals to provincialize national hospitals like Posadas, or even enable private management of them, seek to legitimize leaving entire families on the streets. Examples such as the workers who have been resisting the closures of the ESMA Memory Spaces show that there is a willingness to face the cuts, which is why it is necessary to coordinate from below with the sectors that come out to fight and the families that They go to hospitals every day to access health care.
Milei has to make a monument to the leadership of the CGT. https://t.co/cOr8Xs9yMy
— Nicolas del Caño (@NicolasdelCano) January 15, 2025
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
