“My last pay raise is worth a kilo of weed”

The government is implementing a very deep attackal wage collapse is added to it multi-employment and endless working days to try to make ends meet, putting at risk the quality of care. That’s why More than a thousand workers have just staged a strike and hugged each other in recent weeks to raise awareness of their struggle in defense of public health. These demands focus on the need to unite all affected sectors and surround this cause with solidarity through various initiatives such as spreading the word, mobilizing, or promoting a fund to fight for it.

The fight that is taking place at the Garrahan is problematizing different aspects: the generalized drop in income, the deterioration of the conditions for caring for patients and the consequences of the fierce adjustment suffered by the families who arrive at the hospital every day.

The sharp drop after the devaluation in December means that a stretcher-bearer with no seniority should have as of today a 150% increase to reach a basic family basket calculated at 1,468,989 for basic supplies and services according to ATE Indec. Meanwhile, a stretcher-bearer says, “My last pay rise is worth a kilo of weed.”. Despite the discourse against the “political caste” after all A senator earns 6 times more than a professional nurse. Not to mention those nurses whose professional qualifications have not yet been recognised.

In his 2025 Budget Presentation SpeechMilei made it clear that her main hierarchy will be the payment of the debt. Everything else is relegated: education, health, science, pensions and housing.. During 2024 Until August, a total of 45 annual budgets of the Garrahan were allocated to the payment of debt interest. By 2025 The Ministry of Economy projected a amount for the hospital so only 20% higher than in 2024. A number that is also a message: the aim is to consolidate the current situation and at the same time deepen the cuts.

In just 9 months salary of a Bachelor of Nursingthat of a camillero or that of a administrative from the hospital They lost an average of 36% of their purchasing power. It is what can no longer be bought because during Milei’s mandate Inflation was 144%while the Real wage increases in that period are around 57% for the lower categories. They cannot make ends meet due to constant rate hikes or increases such as rents, which leads to load yourself with more work, overtime (which were even cut) or in some cases professionals directly resign due to this situation.

If before these salaries were not enough to cover the basic expenses of a family group, now they do so much less. Those who manage to exceed this basic basket are affected at the same time by the general loss of purchasing power and the tax on “profits” (wages). It is not a novelty exclusive to this government that attack on public healthIn recent years, the Garrahan health team was the protagonist of strikes and mobilizations during the mandates of Together for Change and the Front of All.

The Government and the Garrahan Professional Council have been applying the same collective bargaining agreement that UPCN has agreed on at a national level. In August it was 3%, in September it will be 2%, in October it will be 1%, all figures well below inflation and which are deepening the fall in wages. As announced by the Nation in November and December, there will be no increases: freezing. The Ministry of Health is trying to establish that the institution is not experiencing problems and that a “bonus of 200 thousand pesos” was given with resources generated from billing to social works. A false fact, This is a part of the salary that the hospital has been paying for years with the resources it generates and that was frozen from November 2023 to August 2024, when it rose by just 25% against 144% inflation..

With this attack on the staff that cares for thousands of patients and families every day It seeks to naturalize an adjustment that is more general and is projected in the long term against public health. At the hospital, the number of consultations is increasing proportionally to the crisis of the entire health system. Workers complain that there are more and more obstacles to guaranteeing high-cost treatments for patients, there are shortages of some medicines and supplies -which in many cases have decreased in quality- or equipment that does not work, such as parenteral nutrition equipment.

This has its own expression outside the country when discounts on medicines for PAMI retirees are removed, a meager increase is vetoed or the salary of university professors is frozen. A series of attacks that would not have the possibility of developing were it not for the help and complicity of the parties that have governed the last decades and unions like UPCN that even threaten those who try to give a response.

That’s why The unity that is being forged between the different sectors of workers at Garrahan is of great value. to confront the cuts in public health, demanding a salary equal to the basic family basket, a 100% increase for everyone and an end to the salary tax. Unity that we must continue to develop in each action, in each assembly, adding sectors that are suffering attacks to coordinate and gain more strength..