There are those who take less medication than prescribed. Those who choose which treatment to receive. And those who won’t get it, because they simply don’t have the money to pay.

In Argentina of “liberalized” prices, of crazy inflation, where the government has stripped down to strict controls and seeks cuts in public spending (and) on medicine, taking care of one’s health is now becoming a luxury.

“Between eating or taking medicine, people choose to eat”: this is how Marcela López explains the drop in sales at her pharmacy in Parque Chacavuco, a middle-class neighborhood in Buenos Aires. He sees patients every day who come in for prescription antibiotics, but as soon as they see the price they leave with a box of painkillers.

Drug sales fell by 18% in January (70% of those prescribed), pharmacists’ collective bodies emphasize.

“Until last year, there was an agreement between the government and the pharmaceutical companies to control prices,” he reminded AFP. Ruben Sachem, director of the center of professional pharmacists of Argentina. The agreement was abandoned, as it also happened in other market sectors (food, fuel…) by the government of extreme liberal president Javier Millais.

The measures she promotes in her deregulatory estrus feed, in the short term she promises, as the “sanitization”, inflation, which had already reached 211% in 2023. Prices rose by 20% in January, eating up more of the citizens’ purchasing power , following the devaluation of the peso, the national currency, by more than 50% in mid-December.

Dilemmas

The statistic of declining drug sales hides dramatic choices and serious risks, especially for those suffering from chronic conditions, says Reuven Sachem.

“For example, a patient who takes a blood pressure pill every day will take a smaller dose,” or increase “the interval between doses. But the reality is that this will not benefit anything, sooner or later the patient’s health condition will worsen, and in the end the cost will be greater for the health system”.

The majority of the world is forced to make tough choices in the Latin American country, where poverty now plagues 57% of the population, according to a recent estimate by a social watchdog.

The most recent official figure for this index, released in September, put poverty at 40 percent.

Viviana Bogado, a cook whose son Daniel, 16, needs antibiotics because of gut bacteria, is faced with a tough dilemma: “I have to choose either his treatment or mine for cholesterol.”

Those most affected are retirees and workers in the informal sector—almost 40% of the total—for whom Argentina’s public health insurance system, a model for decades, is no longer sufficient for anything but very basic needs.

“I take five different medicines, two are offered free of charge, but for the rest I spend 85,000 pesos (almost $100) a month, which is a third of my pension,” groaned Graciela Fuentes, 73, who worked in a restaurant. with arthritis.

Among the world that faces daily great difficulties, there are tragedies. Like Pablo’s.

“He doesn’t have time”

Pablo Riveros, 20, has paroxysmal hemoglobinuria (ie destruction of red blood cells). It causes him anemia, fatigue, blood clots.

Taking medication without interruption is vital.

But her cost is $42,000 a month.

After he was diagnosed in March 2023, he was given medication by the government, thanks to a welfare scheme. But he received the last doses in November.

Thanks to her persistence, his mother, Estella, a seamstress with seven children to care for, managed to find medicine last month, thanks to the help of “a hospital where a dose left for a patient who died”.

The Miley government says that “the state has never stopped” distributing drugs: “all those who need them will continue to receive them,” a spokesman for the presidency recently assured.

Denouncing the “corruption” it says was ubiquitous under its predecessor, the Peronists (centre-left) of Alberto Fernández, the current government is now conducting audits everywhere in its attempt to find areas to cut costs.

In particular, the direction of immediate assistance in special situations has been targeted.

This organization, with a budget of almost 43 million dollars, is responsible for serious diseases. But the government says an audit revealed “irregularities” and “scandalous tenders”, even for oncology drugs.

Estela, who went to court to urgently secure a dose of her child’s medication and is awaiting a decision, was told that “the state does not refuse to give medication, but must wait until the control” being carried out is finished.

Except Pablo “doesn’t have time” to wait, his mother objects.