The Poorest Sectors of the City Haven’t Had Improvements on Public Health
<p style="line-height: 20.7999992370605px;"><span style="line-height: 1.6em;">The AGCBA’s report declared the bad state of the Health and Community Action Centers from the southern part of the City: there is a lack of specialized personnel in different areas, like the one dedicated to drug treatments, more than 24 year old infrastructure, construction problems, mismanagement of waste pathogens, and other irregularities that despite being detected in 2007, have continued.</span></p> <div> </div>
In 2007 the General Audit of the City of Buenos Aires (AGCBA, for its acronym in Spanish), evaluated the state of the Health and Community Action Centers (CESAC, for its acronym in Spanish) from the southern part of the City and detected “building deficiencies and lack of personnel”. In 2013 a new report was approved, but the situation doesn’t seem to have improved: “The modifications implemented haven’t been able to transform into corrective actions that would give answer to the previous observations” and, finally, to the population.
According to the City watchdog, the changes that the Health Ministry implemented in the CESAC weren’t enough to improve the quality of the primary care services in the most vulnerable areas of the City. In fact, on a general level, it had “a decrease of professionals and working hours in obstetrics and gynecology, gerontology, psychiatrists, and psychologists”.
One of the recommendations of the AGCBA was “to improve the distribution of hours and resources prioritizing the primary prevention activities” because in some cases “they don’t answer to the center’s needs”.
Another setback found was that the hospitals “patched” the lack of administrative personnel with health promoters. They “are the link between the community and CESAC’s medical team and they are trained to promote self care and prevention behavior”.
The presence of coordinators without formal designations is a constant: the percentage of professionals that practice directorate positions but are not compensated is “higher than 80%”. The personnel do not perceive a financial remuneration for their psychological and physical exposure. According to the AGCBA “because they work in a hostile environment, an incentive system should be implemented”.
Continuing with the lack of human resources, the City watchdog said that “the increase of the misuse of drugs requires an interdisciplinary approach that 50% of the Centers are not in conditions to take on because of their professional structure”. This observation is more relevant if we consider that the southern area of the City is the most vulnerable.
It is important to mention that for the tracing of each observation “they applied the audit guides previously used, but updating the existing promotion and prevention programs”, to make them comparable with the previous analysis indicators.
INFRAstrucutre
As stated in the report, in most of the audited Centers “the available space was limited, even in newly built facilities”. The lack of clinics, multipurpose rooms for workshops, and a place where patients should wait derived in the recommendation to “accelerate the execution of the remodeling construction jobs and the construction of new tendered and approved offices".
The Center Nº 7, situated in 2 de abril and Montiel, “has poor construction under a bridge, with serious structural deficit like the lack of space and privacy in consulting rooms, insufficient ventilation, and cracks in the walls”.
The Nº 16 of Barracas “is below the train tracks and is 24 years old, so its situation is extremely precarious". However, “it did not receive structural modifications and it has the same deficit as the previous audit, even though they presented many projects in the last ten years”.
Logically, The Claims
The City watchdog asked the Ombudsman for some information about the complaints related with the health centers in the southern area of the City. The data analyzed showed that “the most significant claims are because of CESACs’ infrastructure” and most of them “take between four and five years of paperwork within the agency until they reach their destination”.
Even More
In general, the AGCBA also detected “the inexistence of an adequate and safe space for the management of waste pathogens”, a fact that had already been observed in 2007 and that “represents a potential health risk”.
About the medications the Audit expressed “the lack of a system to control the request circuit, reception, delivery, and stock control”, in addition to a “removal mechanism of expired medicines”. They also have shortcomings when it comes to “updated computer equipment and a connection with the Hospital’s network”. In consequence, “there is neither statistic register nor a monitoring of the patients”.
Resources
The legal and financial Audit has the responsibility of determining if “the decrease of loans for Promotion and Health Prevention Actions of the budget of each hospital was then sent to other activities in order to buy inputs and medication in a centralized manner".