“There are phrases that are not just phrases. There are phrases that order a way of looking. And when that way of looking comes from the Minister of Health of the Nation, it stops being an unfortunate opinion and becomes an political, institutional and moral problem“This is how the note signed by gerontology professionals, other health workers and older people begins to request the resignation of the head of the health portfolio, Mario Lugones. The petition – which gathered more than five thousand signatures – was launched after the minister defined members over 80 years of age as “a very big burden” at the National Institute of Social Services for Retirees and Pensioners (PAMI).
“Gerontologists from all over the country ask for the resignation of Minister Mario Lugones for his statements about PAMI. We ask for it because When a minister states that PAMI ‘has a very heavy burden’ when referring to its members over 80 years of age, he is not simply describing demographic data. It is revealing a conception of old age. And that conception is incompatible with the responsibility of conducting national health policy.. Especially with a Minister who is also a member of the group of Seniors and seems not to consider himself as such,” they stated, in relation to Lugones’ age: just shy of turning 79.
The request bears the signature of professionals such as Silvia Gascón, gerontologist from La Plata and president of the Red Mayor La Plata Civil Association; Ricardo Iacub, specialist in psychology of old age; Mónica Roqué, president of the Latin American Association of Community Gerontology and former Secretary General of Human Rights, Common Geronto, Gender and Care Policies of PAMI; María Julieta Oddone, CONICET researcher and director of the Aging and Society Program at FLACSO; Graciela Zarebski, doctor in Psychology from the UBA, professor and director of the Ibero-American Institute of Aging Sciences. And the list goes on.
The requested
In their note, the signatory professionals, together with older people, maintain that “the word ‘burden’ is not neutral. It does not describe: it qualifies. It does not inform: it hierarchizes. It places older people on the side of weight, of cost, of what is inconvenient, of what we have to endure talking about those who have reached old age as if they were an overload for the system. There we are facing an ageist view. And Ageism, it should be said clearly, is not an incorrectness of language. It is a form of discrimination. A way to order priorities. A way to decide who deserves more understanding and who deserves less. Who is read as an investment and who as a cost. “Who is protected and who is abandoned.”
“The most serious thing is that this phrase does not fall into a vacuum. It occurs in a context where older people are accumulating concrete signs of deterioration in their access to health. First was the restriction of full PAMI drug coverage. Then, the judicialization of that right, with the need for Justice to intervene to restore something as basic as access to 100% remedies. Later, the fall in the purchasing power of pensions, which made it even more difficult to sustain chronic treatments. And now the recent modification of the payment scheme for PAMI general practitioners is added. That is why the request for resignation is not excessive. It’s coherent. And it also demands an urgent investigation into the social and health situation of the members,” they claimed.
“When the highest health authority in a country names older people as a burden, while the material conditions of the care they receive deteriorate, a fundamental incompatibility between that view and the public function is evident. You cannot protect a population that is seen as a problem. You cannot take good care of those who are viewed with budgetary annoyance. Argentina needs a social pact on aging, so that no one is left behind for reasons of age. And it must start from an elementary premise: old age is not a burden. The burden, in any case, is prejudice,” they concluded.
Another criminal complaint
In parallel with the dissemination of the requested and request for resignation, it became known in the last few hours that a criminal complaint was filed against Lugones for alleged abandonment of person and breach of duties as a public official. It was presented by relatives of people with disabilities and also reaches the president Javier Milei, the chief of staff Manuel Adorni, the former head of Andis, Diego Spagnuolo, and the current head of the area, Alejandro Vilches.
As stated Financial Area, The case was filed before the Federal Criminal and Correctional Court No. 5 and is sponsored by lawyer Javier Garín, representing the group of people affected by the adjustment in disability, civil society organizations and health professionals, who accuse the national government of orchestrating a systematic adjustment in the payment of benefits, even evading judicial rulings, in addition to maintaining a discourse of contempt towards people with disabilities.
“The President’s contempt for people with disabilities was translated into policies: an escalation of strong budget adjustments, suspension or cancellation of benefits and pensions, acts of alleged corruption in the National Disability Agency (ANDIS), the subsequent announcement of its closure, the veto of emergency disability laws and systematic non-compliance with court orders that imposed him to comply with current legislation,” they list in the brief. They also point out against discursive attacks: stigmatizing comments of Adorni when he gave press conferences as a spokesperson, the regulations that used the terms “idiot”, “imbecile” and “feeble-minded”, among others.
In October of last year, the Association of Professionals and Technicians (APyT) of the Garrahan hospital had already filed a criminal complaint against Lugones and Milei for alleged failure to comply with the duties of public officials and “attack on the democratic order”, after the promulgation but without implementation of the Pediatric Emergency Law. A year earlier, in October 2024, the leader of the Civic Coalition, Elisa Carrió, had denounced Lugones for “abuse of authority” following the change of the Garrahan board of directors.
The new complaint coincides with another attack by the Government against people with disabilities, through the sending to Congress of a bill that toughens access to pensions and aims to establish a new adjustment for the hardest hit sector of society under this administration. While people with disabilities, family members and organizations warn again and again that the system on which their care depends has been brought to collapse.
