In Mar del Plata, a health center provides certificates of disability to people who do not have a medical history. It is the National Institute of Psychophysical Rehabilitation of the South (INAREPS), which, according to a report from the General Office of the Nation (SIGEN, for its acronym in Spanish), also registers other "internal control weaknesses" and staff shortages in areas such as nursing and psychology.

The SIGEN analyzed in its work some 20 medical records of patients registered in the book of "surgeries of shift" that require anesthesia, and detected that the seal of the professional in 14 cases, the professional registration in seven, the pre-anesthesia evaluation in 10 And post anesthetic study in five patients.

In addition, "omissions" were observed in the medical records of patients in the area of ​​Cardiology, where the type of exercise indicated by the professionals is not detailed, the blood pressure and heart rate controls are not archived and in some cases “the evolution of the patient is not recorded monthly, as established by the internal regulations," states the agency.

INAREPS was born in 1956 as a Rehabilitation Center for Disabled Children and in 1976 became a decentralized body of the Ministry of Health of the Nation. It is on Route 88, km 4,5 of Mar del Plata, receives derivations from Patagonia, La Pampa and Cuyo, and attends cases of severe spinal injuries, amputees, rheumatics, cerebral palsy, polio sequelae, encephalocranial trauma, among others.

In its report, approved in 2008 on 2007 data, SIGEN noted a "significant diversion in the achievement of the programmed targets" by INAREPS. In 2006, for example, the health center had planned to perform 200 surgeries, but 111 were made, and that failure was due, according to the control body, to the "lack of prosthetic delivery" needed for operations. In addition, for the same year, the Institute planned to attend a total of 1000 patients and only attended the service 584. "There are delays in the allocation of shifts," says the Receivership, adding: "In June 2007, Delivered 15 shifts to the electromedicine laboratory (while) the target is 58 monthly studies."

Another failure noted by SIGEN is that most INAREPS nurses are over 50 years old and, at the same time, make up a "scarce staff" that is at the limit of their operative capacity. The staff is not enough to cover the demand of the outpatient clinics, the area of ​​speech therapy, the outpatient care or the interns in the psychology service, which also has no administrative assistant.

As for the building status of the center, the report describes that "the electrical installation is old", the rooms do not have "emergency office call system" and some do not have air circulation. At the close of the Agency’s work, INAREPS had bought new equipment for the clinical analysis laboratory, which, however, did not have the physical place to incorporate and use the new apparatus. The neurology section, for its part, has 13 offices: of this total, four are without lavatories, and one "has dimensions smaller than those recommended for rehabilitation facilities," the control agency completed.