The executive director of PAMI, Luana Volnovich, launched the Sonrisa Mayor program in Río Gallegos, with an investment of 1,000 million pesos per month to guarantee the oral health of those affiliated with this social work throughout the country, and celebrated that “a historic debt” is being paid off.
“We know that this is a historical debt, It has been 16 years since the PAMI dental plan was modifiedwe are doing it and we are very happy to do it here, where the protagonists of what has inspired this program that we launched are, “said Volnovich at the launch, which took place in the White Room of the Government House of Santa Cruz.
In this sense, he warned that “The last dental plan in the PAMI was made in 2006 and the attention deficit that even social work had at the time was also paid off with Argentina Sonríe”.
Together with the provincial president Alicia Kirchner, Volnovich also explained that this launch “it is nothing more than a continuation of something that has already been done”, in reference to the program Argentina Sonríewhich functioned from the Ministry of Health to combat oral diseases during the presidency of Cristina Kirchner.
BIGGER SMILE, A NEW STEP IN #FreedomToChoose❤️
Yesterday in Santa Cruz, together with @luanavolnovich Y @aliciakirchnerwe launched the new PAMI Dental Plan incorporating these practices to the Freedom to Choose program. pic.twitter.com/jCKesDOje0
— Martin Rodriguez (@mrodriguezhur) October 14, 2022
Guarantee oral health
“We like, we decided to do it here because somehow it was born here. Alicia told us about the behind the scenes of the programs. There is Rocío García (current provincial deputy) who was part of the Argentina Sonríe program,” said the head of PAMI.
Volnovich reported that “what we are doing is guaranteeing the oral health of our members with a very simple system who finances to make it happen”.
The national official pointed out that “it was very difficult to find a professional” who would carry out dental prostheses, “with a vocation, with commitment, with solidarity, but we believe that it is the State, the social work of retirees that has to guarantee the conditions”, he emphasized.
And he explained that “in this way They will charge only the professionals who attend. It seems obvious but it wasn’tand we are also making an investment of $1,000 million a month to make this possible”, he detailed.
What is “Smile Major”
“Sonrisa Mayor” allows members to choose their dentist and access the priority menu with all practices such as prosthetics, endodontics, complex surgeries, diagnostic imaging, among others.
Based on the freedom to choose, affiliated people will have a primary dentist for prevention and control, and they will also be able to choose where to receive care.
balanced accounts
“We can make the investment because we were able to balance our accounts. We know that much remains to be done, so we continue to work permanently, but we are convinced that this dental plan that we are launching from Santa Cruz for Argentina will mean that many of our members do not have to worry about spending money out of their pockets, and can improve their diet. which is intimately related,” he added.
As indicated, PAMI had “a debt of $19,000 millionthe majority of medicines not paid for by the previous management, we had a deficit of $8,000 million, it seemed impossible to be able to solve it and the truth is that with the pandemic we were able to solve it and we were able to guarantee the free medicine program that makes 4 million people have free medications, saving $6,000 or 7,000 every month on medications”he concluded.
during the act the province and PAMI signed a collaboration framework agreement for the Health Strengthening Program and they anticipated an upcoming agreement for the public tender for the acquisition of a state-of-the-art nuclear magnetic resonator, which will be delivered as a loan to the CENMPA foundation, with an approximate investment of one million eight hundred dollars.
“The public health system of the province of Santa Cruz is a strategic ally of PAMI for the care of our members, Therefore, our commitment is to strengthen the health system so that they are better providers and that we have better quality or more care,” said Volnovich.
And he added: “We are very happy with this agreement that It will contribute to health but also to make life easier for our members in Santa Cruz”.
Volnovich warned that “PAMI is the largest social work in Latin America, it has 5 million members, I think it is the largest in the world of retirees, so the impact that the announcements we make have for such a large number of people, it is always good news”.
