Curing Hunger to Heal in Argentina: The Story of Venezuelan Doctors Already Working in the Country

The first time Willmer Bracho receives the call of Infobae travels by bus from the center of Palpalá, 15 km south of San Salvador de Jujuy, to one of the health facilities located on the outskirts of this city. There, this Venezuelan doctor has been working since last August. On 52 years and 23 profession, he arrived in Argentina two and a half years ago. "I left Venezuela because I was going to starve", said emphatic and kind during the phone interview.

Specializing in obesity, cardiopulmonary rehabilitation and occupational medicine, Bracho owned a cardiac rehab clinic and was working as the head of the physiatry unit in a Coro High Performance Center, on the Falcon Peninsula, on the west coast of the Caribbean. "After 12 years, because of the disastrous social, economic and political situation in my country, I had to close the clinic. I left everything packed and I arrived alone in Argentina with 400 bucks. "

Bracho is one of almost 115,000 Venezuelans who received the deposit in the country – whether temporary or permanent – since January 2016, according to official data from Migrations. Although it is estimated that at least 130,000 have already entered the Argentine territory. Of this total, 70,500 filed a claim last year, more than double the year before. Around 4,500 are doctors, according to the records of the body. Some 250 people are already working in the country, in areas far from urban centers, according to the survey of the Association of Venezuelan Doctors in Argentina (Asomevenar).

When he arrived in Buenos Aires and until he left for Jujuy seven months ago to work as a clinician, Bracho did it all. The "everything" is literal: cleaning the pipes, working as a waiter, repairing lamps, caring for the elderly and walking his dogs. "Before getting the doctor job in Palpalá, the most useful job was in a pharmacy for which I attended a pharmacy badistant course," he explains.

This doctor, who was also a university professor in his country, went to Jujuy to work in the direction of another Venezuelan colleague – Mariangel Medina – with whom he graduated from the university. Francisco Miranda University. She was already settled in Palpalá and worked as a pediatrician at the local hospital with her husband, an engineer.

Bracho and Medina are part of the 27 Venezuelan doctors who started working in the last months of 2018 in twenty cities in the interior of Jujuy such as Abra Pampa, La Quiaca, Maimara, Humahuaca, Ledesma, Casabindo, Perico, Susques, Paso de Jama and El Fuerte.

Their wages are between 60 000 and 80 000 pesos per month. Their 15 other professionals will join in the coming weeks They have completed their registration procedures and already have an badigned destination in outlying areas of the province.

All were hired by the Jujuy Ministry of Health under an agreement with the Ministry of Education and the Association of Venezuelan Doctors of Argentina. This modality is the result of a resolution of March 2018 which allowed to accelerate the process of convolution of professional titles.

The revalidation application can be managed by provincial health portfolios directly with Education, when they must cover local health claims. This agreement allowed speed up the time needed for Venezuelan doctors to approve their diplomas, pbad the required exam and get their registration. Until the dictation of this resolution, the revalidation of the title was to be made by each foreign doctor personally in an Argentine university, and it took up to a year and a half.

To this initiative The National Directorate of Migration has also been added speed up the processing of the DNI, the first step to start the process, and allowing a dialogue channel with Asomevenar.

Bracho has left Venezuela his 20 year old son, a student at the university and whom he hopes to be able to bring to Argentina in the near future. There are also his parents, one of his sisters and his nephews. He does not know when he can see them again.

As a doctor in Palpalá, he has enough money to support himself and send them money to survive. In his words, the rest of his family "is a traveling United Nations", scattered in different countries of the region, mainly Colombia.

Health Minister Jujuy, Gustavo Bouhid, explained to critics about the arrival of Venezuelan doctors in the province: to answer an old problem, because of a geographical problem, we have places where, beyond of the medical cycle once a month, people without access to a doctor, different strategies have been tried to try the professionals of Jujuy to go to these sites, with different economic offers, but they have not not working, they are ready to do it, they sacrificed a lot when they left their country and they try to open a new path, and for us it's an opportunity. papers in order ".

Jujuy's Minister of Health, Gustavo Bouhid, accompanied by Venezuelan doctors Wilmer Bracho, Luisana Marcano and Mariángel Medina.

In other provinces

The plan to convene Venezuelan doctors to meet the often inhospitable demand in remote areas has already been replicated in other provinces.

According to the Asomevenar Registry – which currently has 750 doctors resident in the country – In Corrientes, 21 professionals are already working.

"A Salta 15 doctors arrive this week and the recording will be released these days. They are already settled in different workplaces in the province, "says Bracho, a reference in the opinion of the badociation. 15 others have finished processing their registration and will start in Catamarca"he adds.

The Río Negro experience

These neighborhoods are not the only ones. At the beginning of last year, from the Río Negro Health Portfolio, they launched a call to hire paid doctors at more than 80,000 pesos in order to settle in difficult areas of access. The offer included Venezuelan doctors.

Ten days ago, four provincial professionals from this country obtained registration in the province, in addition to five others who also just met the obligation to practice in the province, in both public and private systems. Specialists in pediatrics and general practice will be held in the hospitals of Cipolletti, Choele Choel and Maquinchao.

Four of the Venezuelan doctors who will practice in Río Negro (with the daily permission of Río Negro)

In all, Nearly twenty Venezuelan doctors are already working in the province.. Consulted by Infobae, Fabián Zgaib, Río Negro's Minister of Health, explains how this process was going: "Six months ago, migrants signed a series of agreements and we advanced on the possibility of incorporating health professionals from this country 200 list that circulated. We conducted personal interviews and selected, by profile and specialty, about 27. We submitted to the Ministry of Education of the nation the application for validation of their titles, which were approved 19 ".

Fabián Zgaib, Minister of Health of Río Negro.

The head of Rio Negro however warned that "there is no formal agreement with Migraciones" to continue to add Venezuelan doctors. "The incorporation of doctors comes to fill the gap we have in the health system, due to the increase in demand and the opening of new servicesboth in general medicine and in specialties such as pediatrics, intensive pediatric therapy, gynecology or neonatology. It is not just Venezuelans. Last year we published about 80 doctors, all Argentines. In two weeks, we will open the 6,500-square-foot Allen Hospital, "he said.

From Rionegrina Association of Health Teams (ARES), its president, Dr. José María Alí Brouchoud, says it has no objection to foreign professionals "and less Venezuelans" coming to work in the province. "There is a need to expand health coverage and, in fact, most of the Río Negro doctors come from other countries," he said.

Yes, explicit Infobae an badertion they made public: "Residents trained in the public system, often as general practitioners, do not get a job offer from the province when they graduate, so we think that it is necessary to encourage them to hold a job in the local market, even though it is not to the detriment of anyone. "He also argues that"the supply of labor in the south zone, which is very underprivileged, should be made more attractive, so that more doctors can settle in this area"

The province of Buenos Aires, the first destination

According to the data of the badociation that brings together Venezuelan doctors in Argentina, professionals working in the province of Buenos Aires amount to 138. The district was a pioneer: the first began to do so in August 2018.

Unlike vacancies in the interior of the country, due to the territorial proximity, the badociation was detected by a visit to the directors of the hospitals of Greater Buenos Aires to know the deficits of the specialties to be covered.

Juan Villalobos, 32, president of Asomevenar, is one of these doctors. He arrived in Argentina in January 2016. Although he worked as a doctor in San Cristóbal, Táchira, he made the decision to leave his country "due to the deficit of hospitals, lack of food and drugs. " "There were his parents and one of his sisters.The other immigrated to Spain.

He works at the general guard of Domingo Mercante hospital of José C. Paz, where a dozen Venezuelan professionals work. It also covers another guard of the municipal hospital of this locality of the agglomeration of Buenos Aires, while studying the specialization in immunology. "The working conditions are good, the medical and nursing staff behaved very well. There was no discrimination", he says in a dialogue with Infobae. And a fact no less serious: With what he earns, he has money left to send to his family.

From Trade Union Association of Health Professionals of the Province of Buenos Aires (CICOP), its general secretary, Marta Márquez, states that "they have no objection" to the incorporation of Venezuelan doctors into the public health system. "Our concern is that their degree is approved in accordance with international standards and agreements and that they are hired under the same conditions as Argentine doctors. We do not admit the precariousness of the job"

Medical or distribution deficit?

According to a 2017 report from the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization, Argentina has 168,000 registered doctors, giving an average of 3.6 professionals per 1,000 inhabitants. This figure is among the best in the world.

However, these figures differ considerably by district and reflect the poor distribution of professionals in the Argentine territory. The city of Buenos Aires has 10.2 doctors per 1 000 inhabitants, which leaves the provinces a proportion lower than the international standards (2 doctors / 1000 inhabitants). In Misiones, for example, the ratio is 2 per 1,000.

These differences have a correlation in the location of extraterrestrials. "Of the 670,000 – all nationalities combined – entered the country from early 2016 until the end of last year, 90% are located in the capital or in the first cordon of the conurbano", explains Horacio García, national director of Migrations, which pushes a program of reorientation of migrants according to the manpower needs of the different provinces.

Horacio García, National Director of Migration.

In the last six months, said García, with this initiative "We managed to relocate 250 foreigners according to the demand for labor in the different provinces.. Not only Venezuelans, but of different nationalities. "

This lawyer emphasizes in the dialogue with this media that "now the filing process is launched electronically and precarious residence is granted automaticallyonce the required documentation has been sent. Nobody should be in an irregular situation. "He adds that" the migrant must now put his vocational training at the service of unmet demand in the provinces. Leave your mail and contact him. Among the foreigners, there is a lot of willingness to go inside.

For example, with this objective in mind, UATRE is in talks with the Rural Workers' Guild, which, as it is claimed, "has an unmet demand in the provinces for 93,000 jobs for harvesting and pruning".

"Migration must be understood as a benefit for the development of our country, formed by the work of immigrants. The former immigrant hotel received them and sought to give them, in addition to their accommodation upon arrival, a training in a trade. And from Retiro, they went to other parts of Argentina, to populate it and contribute to the development of the country. The current challenge is to think seriously about the direction of migration flows for the benefit of all."concludes García.