In a context of fierce austerity and social crisis, the province of Jujuy has become the laboratory for a regressive reform of the National Mental Health Law. Since last Monday, the Mental Health Emergency Room at Wenceslao Gallardo Hospital in Palpalá has been operating with remote psychiatrists. The Secretary of Mental Health and Addictions, Agustín Yécora, signed a memorandum imposing “remote care” and, in one fell swoop, laid off four psychiatrists who had been providing in-person emergency coverage.
In their place, the government outsourced the service to professionals from Santa Fe and Venezuela, according to hospital workers. Now, in the event of an acute crisis or imminent risk, the psychiatrist is not on site. Psychologists, social workers, and nurses must act as “the eyes” of a doctor thousands of kilometers away. “They force us to put our bodies on the line without backup,” they lament. The measure, presented as “telemedicine,” effectively destroys the interdisciplinary approach required by Law No. 26,657.
The contrast is stark. Just weeks ago, Yécora himself defended the need for interdisciplinary teams in the Senate and assured that serious patients cannot be treated without in-person care. While warning that regressive reforms would “make things much worse,” in his own province he signed off on layoffs and enabled remote care. A hypocrisy that workers denounce as part of the dismantling of the public system.
This experiment is no coincidence. In those same hearings, the National Director of Comprehensive Mental Health Approach, Liliana González, revealed that the official-backed bill to amend the law leaves the door open to virtual care and even the use of Artificial Intelligence. The measure in Jujuy is empirical proof of how this loosening is used to outsource health care and abandon users.
All this occurs amid a severe deterioration of living conditions, where austerity, the breakdown of social bonds, and rampant individualism trigger crises in emergency rooms. But the state’s response is to empty, outsource, and advance covert privatization. Workers report that despite recording every intervention with strict protocols, the government hides the real data and replaces it with press releases touting “health success.”
The regressive reforms to the Mental Health Law are not aimed at improving the public system, but at social discipline. It is about managing, pathologizing, or abandoning those who suffer the consequences of the economic model. While workers resist the emptying, public health is drained for the working class and opened up to private business. The virtual emergency room is just the tip of the iceberg.
Para mí esto es un golpazo a los zurdos de siempre! Esos psiquiatras seguro eran kirchneristas vagos que choreaban plata. Mejor atención virtual, más eficiencia y menos gasto público. Los enfermos mentales que se jodan, no son prioridad. Viva la libertad carajo!
che pero esto es un delirio para mi despedir psiquiatras y atender por pantalla con venezolanos? el gobierno de jujuy es una vergüenza violan la ley de salud mental y encima quieren hacer lo mismo en todo el pais son unos fachos de mierda #SaludMentalNoSeVende