Retirees, affiliates and self-convened workers held a press conference this Thursday in front of the headquarters of ObSBA, the state social work of the city of Buenos Aires, where they denounced their “emptying” and pointed out as “responsible” the Buenos Aires government, the Sutecba union , the Association of Municipal Doctors and the Argentine Teachers’ Union.
“All of them make up the board of the ObSBA and are the managers of its emptying and those responsible for taking it to the limit of bankruptcy, which is estimated to reach 7 billion pesos”affirmed Ana Belinco, the main speaker of the conference, which was held with an open microphone on Rivadavia Avenue at 6000, in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Caballito.
The group of Retirees, Affiliates and Self-Convened Workers in Defense of ObSBA also accused the authorities of this social work of “abandoning a person”, since, they maintain, even when critical health conditions are experienced, it is not possible to access care. medical necessary.
“There are members who have disabilities and do not receive the necessary benefit for their pathology, there are colleagues who need home hospitalization because they are going through a serious condition and do not receive it,” said Belinco, who is a teacher in the city of Buenos Aires.
And then he recounted his case: “Being immunocompromised and having asthma from birth, having an alleged Covid picture, which I could not confirm because the City Government lost the result of the swab, they told me that I had to attend by video call, I downloaded the application, I was connected for three hours and passed out in the middle of a fever while waiting for that consultation”.
The self-convened group has already collected more than 500 complaints from members who saw their right to health violated by social work, and earlier this month they tried to take them to the health commission of the Buenos Aires Legislature, which was meeting at that time .
“Being immunocompromised and having asthma from birth, having an alleged Covid picture, which I could not confirm because the City Government lost the result of the swab, they told me that I had to attend by video call, I downloaded the application, I was connected for three hours and I passed out in the middle of a feverish picture waiting for that consultation”Ana Belinco, one of the complainants
“We were a delegation of 10 compañeros and compañeras, but they didn’t let us in,” Belinco said.
Among the reasons for these complaints, the members mention that the health service providers they used to have no longer give shifts or cancel them, alleging that ObSBA does not pay them.
“We are 300,000 members who contribute 6 percent (of salary) to the ObSBA fund, we want to recover social work and avoid bankruptcy,” said Belinco.
Then, Iván Sotomayor, a nurse at the Álvarez Hospital, intervened, who stated: “With the money they take from us, social work should be luxurious, but there is a huge apparatus that is being set up with our money. While the head of government (Horacio Rodríguez Larreta) organizes a barbecue championship, our boys arrive at the underweight schools and get sick from the conditions in which they live”.
Since February of this year, the self-convened group carried out several actions, including three hugs to the Julio Méndez sanatorium. In addition, on July 12 they delivered a request to the board of social work and on the 26th of that month they took a request for reports to the Government of the city of Buenos Aires, since they want to know the accounting balances of ObSBA.
