▲ An NGO volunteer distributes food in the Plaza de Mayo, in front of the presidential palace, yesterday in Buenos Aires.Photo Ap
Stella Calloni
Correspondent
La Jornada Newspaper
Tuesday, October 8, 2024, p. 23
Buenos Aires., The attack by the government of far-right President Javier Milei against education and public health, which placed Argentina as a model in the world, shows the cruelty with which everything that was managed to be built in years of struggle for the essential rights of the population and increases popular resistance, as is currently expressed in the sit-in outside the Laura Bonaparte mental health hospital, where professionals and workers have been since last Friday and continue and will continue to care for patients.
With the collaboration of neighbors, professionals, unions, political groups and artists, they decided to stay in place and the message for human rights organizations is evident, since, the workers point out, They chose to begin their predatory task at this very specialized hospital that bears the name of a mother from Plaza de Mayo. who lost his wife, two daughters, a son, his sons-in-law and his daughter-in-law at the hands of the dictatorship (1976-1983).
The court summoned the new Minister of Health, Mario Lugones, to explain the reasons why, for the first time in history, it was decided to close a hospital as specialized as this one. The court also ordered that the Aerolíneas Argentinas pilots fired by the government for participating in the protests return to their jobs. Another court determined the suspension of the government’s provision to transform sports clubs into public limited companies to sell them to foreigners. Three blows in one day for the government, by a justice sector that acts independently.
On the other hand, the digital portal El Destape cited a source very close to Milei, who acknowledged that work is being done so that the State does not have one more public hospital. Whether the provinces have them or they are private. There are 10 important hospitals that are being targeted for closure.
It is the first time that the rights of the entire community have been destroyed.reported one of the mothers of the patients who were surrounding the mental health hospital and recalled that her daughter was saved after two suicide attempts in this place, after I visited all the hospitals until I arrived at the Laura Bonaparte, where she was saved and today she is an advanced university student. You cannot close a hospital in these critical times and at no other time, if this is closed where are they going to go? Please understand, listen to the people. This is terribly cruel..
On the other hand, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was proposed to lead the Justicialista Party. The former president, in a public letter, showed herself willing to participate in the urgency of resolving party unity.
He would compete with the governor of La Rioja, Ricardo Quintela, who the former president mentioned to occupy this position and who has strong support from the provinces. It stands out how he resolved the situation in his province, even creating a new currency, so as not to depend on the national government’s refusal to deliver the co-participation money, on which the provinces depend.