Research Is Stuck On the Entity That Funds Special Treatments for Health Care
<p style="line-height: 20.7999992370605px;"><span style="line-height: 1.6em;">The Special Programs Administration (EPA, for its acronym in Spanish) has not yet responded to a request made in March by AGN to access the database of the only system that has records of financial support. The request was repeated in writing and "repeated verbally." They claim that the information is "fundamental" to advance with the audit.</span></p> <div> </div>
The General Audit Office (AGN, for its acronym in Spanish) recognized that it cannot move forward on research being done on the body that funds special treatment in health care because it does not receive the "basic information" related precisely to the requests for financial aid.
The body in question is the Special Programs Administration (APE), an area of decentralized Ministry of Health of the Nation, which manages resources of a Solidarity Redistribution Fund with coverage that makes low-incidence diseases and high economic impact or, long treatments. The General College of Auditors, the highest authority of the AGN, signed the Resolution 173/10, which states that the control tasks "were hindered by the lack of response to requests for information made to the APE."
Although the investigation began last year, this problem began on March 19, 2010, when the first Audit requested access to the database Tracking System called PAMPA. According to the resolution, that is "the only record that manages" the documentation generated by the APE. Receiving no answer, and after repeated requests "repeated verbally", the procedure is repeated unsuccessfully on May 28 and June 7.
To refuse to comply with the request of the auditors, APE protected themselves with Law 25.326 Protection of Personal Data, the same law used by the Office of the Comptroller General (SIGEN, for its acronym in Spanish) to remove several unit reports on the state of their website (www.sigen.gov.ar). And also, on the same topic, the Administration consulted the Attorney General and the Treasury Solicitor's Office. However, the auditors responded, first, that such consultations in fact should have been made with the National Directorate for Personal Data, under the Ministry of Justice. And, as a kind of counter-example, the resolution also states that it was APE who acknowledged that the information it has on those who, for example, suffer from HIV, Figure "convenient and codified regulations, preserving the confidentiality" of the data.
"To date there is no accurate information about the world of cases of financial support of the investigated period", completed the audit.
According to the basic rules of operation of the AGN, any request for information includes the obligation of the agency being audited to meet the requisitions in a given period. Because all of the deadlines were met the College of Auditors must hold their opinion and inform SIGEN the situation, the Ministry of Health and the Bicameral Congressional Review Committee.