There are those who take less prescribed pills, those who choose between treatments, and those who simply can't. In an Argentina with “freedom” prices, crazy inflation, and a government that enforces strict health checks, health care can become a luxury.
“Between buying food and medicine, people choose to eat,” says Marcela Lopez, explaining the decline in sales at her pharmacy in Parque Chacabuco, a middle-class neighborhood in Buenos Aires. Every day she sees patients who come for an antibiotic but, given the price, go home with a painkiller…
According to the industry association, drug sales fell 18% in January (70% for prescription drugs). “Until last year there was an agreement between the government and laboratories to moderate prices,” Ruben Sajem, director of the Center of Argentine Professional Pharmacists, recalled to AFP. The agreement, as in other sectors (food, fuel), was abandoned by the ultra-liberal government of Javier Milei in its deregulation impulse.
In the short term – before consolidation, the government promises – all of this will fuel inflation, which was already at 211% in 2023. Prices therefore rose by 20% in January, which helped to swallow up a little more electricity. Purchased after a devaluation of more than 50% of the peso in mid-December.
Cornelian choice
The statistical decline in drug sales does not illustrate the dramatic decisions that take place behind the scenes and the personal risks, especially in chronic diseases, notes Ruben Sajem.
“For example, a patient who takes a medication for high blood pressure every day buys a smaller tablet and thinks it would be OK if he spreads the doses. The reality is that it will do him no good, sooner or later his health will deteriorate and that will ultimately result in higher costs for the healthcare system.
According to a recent study by a social observatory, everyone makes decisions at their own level in a country where 57% of the population is now affected by poverty. The last official semi-annual index, released in September, estimated the poverty rate at 40%.
Viviana Bogado, a chef whose son Daniel, 16, needs antibiotics due to intestinal bacterial overgrowth, faced a difficult decision: “I had to decide, his treatment for cholesterol is mine.
The hardest hit are pensioners and informal workers – almost 40% of the workforce – for whom Argentina's public health insurance system, long cited as an example, is no longer sufficient except for basic services.
“I take five different medications, two are given to me for free, but I spend 85,000 pesos (almost $135) a month on the rest, which is a third of my pension,” moans Graciela Fuentes, a 73-year-old restauranteur. Pensioner. He struggles with his arthritis.
In the spaces between these everyday difficulties, real dramas take place.
“No time” to wait
As for Pablo Riveros, 20 years old, victim of paroxysmal hemoglobinuria (destruction of red blood cells), which causes him to have anemia, fatigue and constant bleeding. And for whom continued treatment is vital, but at a cost of $42,000 per month.
Since his diagnosis in March 2023, he had received medication from the state through a social program, but he received his last doses in November.
Through persistence, his mother Estela, a seamstress with seven dependent children, managed to get occasional help last month “from a hospital that had a dose left for a deceased patient.”
For its part, the government assures that “the State has never stopped supplying medicines” and that “all those who need them will continue to receive them,” as the presidential spokesman recently stated.
The government denounced the “corruption” that it said was pervasive in the previous Peronist (center-left) government and yet conducted sweeping audits to cut spending.
The directive for direct assistance in special situations is particularly targeted.
A nearly 38 billion peso ($58 million) organization responsible for serious diseases, through which it has allegedly uncovered “irregularities” and “shameful tenders,” particularly for high-cost oncology drugs.
In the Estela case, which went to court over an emergency dose and is awaiting a decision, it was argued that “the state did not reject the drugs, but that it was necessary to wait for the end of the trial”. But Pablo has “no time” to wait, she argues.