Emergency care nurse Giselle Yodato felt desperate. She was at home when she got her termination notice via email on Wednesday night, one of almost 200 employees from the Laura Bonaparte Mental Health Hospital in Buenos Aires City to be suddenly laid off. 

Traumatic as the news was, the decision also added a degree of uncertainty to the already stressful situation her personal life was in. Diagnosed with stage 3C lung cancer in October, Yodato was getting ready for her fourth chemotherapy session when she found out she was losing her only source of income.

Nurse Yodato’s story is just the tip of the bloodbath the government is carrying out in the public healthcare system. The firing of doctors, nurses, psychologists, and technicians in the Bonaparte Hospital is part of 1,400 layoffs the Argentine Health Ministry announced on Wednesday. 

A source in the ATE state workers’ union told the Herald that there were also 135 layoffs in the Baldomero Sommer Hospital in Buenos Aires province, 46 in the Superintendency of Health Insurance, plus extra dismissals in the ANMAT food and drugs quality control agency. The government also dissolved the Tuberculosis Directorate. 

Since the beginning of the Milei administration in December 2023, medical doctors nationwide have held protests complaining that their salaries were virtually frozen. Last year, the Milei administration also fired 120 workers from the Posadas, another Buenos Aires public hospital.

The drastic downsizing of state-run healthcare is taking place at the same time that costs of private healthcare have skyrocketed. The situation became so egregious that even the government intervened, accusing the companies of colluding to fix prices between December 2023 and April 2024, when fees rose by an average of 150%.

A mental health hospital teetering on the brink

Javier Milei’s administration has seemingly been at odds with the Bonaparte Hospital since coming into office. Its workers’ contracts used to be renewed once a year, but since December 2023, they have been forced to go through this ordeal every three months.

Last October, the administration said it would partially shut down the Bonaparte, the only national state-owned mental health medical center. The announcement led to widespread protests that initially caused the government to backtrack on its decision. Wednesday’s layoffs, which represent close to 40% of the hospital’s workforce, seem to indicate the administration has returned to the charge.

Camila Seijas, a social worker in the Bonaparte Hospital who was also fired, told the Herald that the layoffs are hindering the medical center’s capability to see patients. 

The hospital’s 24-7 hotline, for instance, is already operating during fewer hours, the emergency room does not have psychiatrists anymore, and hospitalizations have no more reception personnel.

The hospital’s child and adolescent psychiatrist, head dentist, and musical therapist were also dismissed.

“The operation of the hospital is almost impossible to sustain; every department is working with minimum staff,” Seijas said.

Yodato, the nurse who was on medical leave for her cancer treatment when she got fired, is worried about the 98,000 patients the mental health hospital sees every year — even when she recounts her own disease.

“I think about how it would affect me if one of the centers that treats me either shuts down or has a [personnel] reduction,” she told the Herald. 

“The therapeutic pilgrimage that can happen during chronic diseases is arduous.”

Union representative Leonardo Fernández Camacho relayed that there are no psychiatrists in the hospital for the Saturday night shift. “We have hospitalized patients that we are not going to be able to treat, as well as people who arrive as walk-ins with decompensations,” he told the Herald.

He said that workers will protest on Monday at 5 p.m. at the hospital entrance. 

“We hope that some authority from the ministry will first show up at the hospital and then call a meeting to talk and review the measure,” said Fernández Camacho. “This leaves the hospital unable to continue fulfilling its role.”

Yodato added that she trusts her colleagues’ collective organization. When she saw Milei’s post on X celebrating the layoffs, she was saddened but not surprised.

“I do not expect anything from them, and they always said they wanted to go against the state — they put together a ministry to dismantle it,” she said. “We, on the other hand, dedicate ourselves to taking care of other people.”