The National Library was this Wednesday the scene of a tribute made in memory of the figure and career of the health doctor, Floreal Ferrarawho was Minister of Health of Buenos Aires and remembered for promoting the Ambulatory Home Medical Health Care program (Atamdos)
Her granddaughter and organizer of the meeting, María Florencia Rojas, characterized the meeting as “an act of justice to spread his work because he suffered a lot from persecution and has been made invisible” and he said that his grandfather was a fan of philosophical readings in addition to having a firm militant commitment.
“The tribute to my grandfather is an act of justice, because he suffered a lot from persecution because he defined himself as a Peronist and a revolutionary and they have made him invisible; therefore, it is important to spread his work, even to the academy, where he was also denied,” told Télam the granddaughter of who, in addition to being a teacher and bibliophile, was Buenos Aires Minister of Health in 1973 and 1987.
In the tribute to Floreal Ferrara, held this Tuesday at 10 in the auditorium of the National Library, organized by the granddaughter of the renowned health doctor and his grandson, Mauro Ariel Rojas, and was presented by the current director of the institution, Juan Sasturain .
“The tribute to my grandfather is an act of justice, because he suffered a lot from the persecution because he defined himself a Peronist and a revolutionary.”Maria Florence Rojas
Also present were the current Buenos Aires Health Minister, Nicolás Kreplak; the national deputy and former Minister of Health of the province of Buenos Aires and of the Nation, Daniel Gollan; the director of the Floreal Ferrara School of Government in Health, Mario Rovere and the renowned health doctor Jorge Rachid.
For its part, The economist grandson of the honoree, Mauro Rojas, lovingly vindicated his grandfather’s legacy in his idea of health.
“Health for him was to think about the State, strengthen it, but at the same time nurture it from the people and build the State from and through the people,” recalled Mauro Rojas, about what his grandfather, the cardiologist specialized in Social Medicine, preached and implemented. .
He also remarked that this ideology and theory was embodied in his well-known policy of the Atamdos (Ambulatory Home Medical Health Care), “where the people themselves decided the budget and how public policies were carried out,” and said that “this is the best reflection of Floreal’s idea and a specific policy”.
Ferrara’s granddaughter and grandson continued the legacy promoted by her partner, Elizabeth Collduana, and launched the website, florealferrara.com.ar, where they compile her work and unpublished manuscripts. “The idea is that it be open to all fellow students and the general public,” they said.
“What he preached was just like what he did every day, I have the pleasure of having lived with him until he was twenty years old and basically he raised us, he was a teacher and a father”recalled Florencia Rojas, who added: “Everything that interests me about academics, he sent it to me with enormous passion, to understand how the world works, that each space impacts another.”
His grandson describes his grandfather with “an integral vision of health, following the school of Ramón Carrillo (neurosurgeon, neurobiologist and health doctor of African descent from Argentina, he held the position of Minister of Health of the Argentine Nation, during the presidency of Juan Domingo Peron)”.
“Understanding health not only from appliances and medicines but from society in general and I highlight his philosophical readings, but also that he was related to the workers, he had a very good relationship with the unions and I think that all those who had some experience with him, he really left them something very important”, his grandson proudly pointed out.
For his part, Kreplak said that in his role as a teacher he uses many texts by Floreal.
“The faculty speaks of primary health care as the ideal that must be sought, but then it trains you in absolutely the opposite all the time, that’s why we work with Floreal,” said the current Minister of Health of the province of Buenos Aires, who got to know the doctor.
“If I think about the interesting things about Floreal, it is that in order to talk about health there must be a very deep philosophical and epistemological thought”said.
Regarding the definition of health preached by the renowned doctor, born 98 years ago in the Buenos Aires town of Punta Alta and who died in 2010, Kreplak recalled: “You have to be very bold to define health and there was no better definition than that of him: ´Health is not only a struggle, but fighting is health´, it is a performative action, while you fight, you become healthy”.
While, Daniel Golan, reflected on what would have happened if in the province of Buenos Aires “all the primary care centers would have been Atamdos, with a strong level of care and what would happen to the system, with that idea as the orderer”.
“Floreal lasts four months and 16 days in the Ministry (of Health of the province of Buenos Aires) and leaves the concept of a tool, that we need a huge social organization, it is a very strong cultural battle that you never win “, said.
In turn, Gollan added: “Those of us who lived through the Atamdos experience changed our minds and we found ourselves with political militancy that led us to see health from another side.”
