Gerardo Morales points to Bolivia, but foreigners account for only 0.28% of hospitalizations

As well as Mauricio Macri to bet all its possibilities for a deepening of the punitive demagogy and to set up an agenda focused on the fight against the insecurity, in Jujuy, the governor Gerardo Morales He once again turned Bolivians into his favorite scapegoat.

The president of the province introduced a bill in the local legislature to: establish health insurance collection for non-resident aliens to be treated in the hospitals of Jujuy.

According to the Jujuy Ministry of Health in 2016, only 132 of the 47,147 people interned that year were foreigners.

While universal access to health in Argentina is a right enshrined in the national constitution, Morales intends to impose it in the case of musician Jujuy Manuel Vilca, injured in Bolivia and to whom the neighboring country has charged him the costs of his hospitalization, to try to do the same with non-resident foreigners of health insurance.

Morales used his account in Twitter circulate the letter addressed to the Bolivian Minister of Health, requesting that the account of care be paid by the Bolivian State. He even came to accuse the government of Evo Morales for the alleged "dehumanized treatment" that Vilca would have suffered.

The acting a campaign led by Morales in Bolivia could be extended to other countries. Or at least, we should wait, Bolivia is not the only country in the world to charge its health services to foreigners. It would also be possible to expect a message of the same force this time directed against the government of Donald Trump When another citizen of Jujuy, without private health insurance, suffered an accident, this time in the United States.

In addition to claiming to violate a constitutional right such as access to health, Morales seeks to install a supposed problem where it does not seem to exist. This is at least what appears from the statistics of the Ministry of Health of the province of Jujuy.

If we take into account patients of unknown origin and counted as foreigners, the rate of foreigners interned at Jujuy was only 2.53%.

According to the latest "Hospital Statistics Yearbook" of the Jujuy Ministry of Health, which collects data for 2016, only 132 of the 47,147 hospitalizations recorded that year in Jujeñso hospitals corresponded to foreign citizens, only 0.28%.

The yearbook indicates that out of 1,061 of them, the origin of hospitalized patients (no consultation by guards or outpatient clinics) was taken into account, of which l & # 39; 39, origin was unknown. If we wanted to reinforce Morales' argument and claim that they were all strangers, strangers would have explained that 2.53% of hospitalizations.

The Legislative Assembly will deal tomorrow in extraordinary session with the project to install the "Alien Health Insurance System", which includes 11 articles and states that "foreigners whose country of origin is expressly exempt from this legal regime" has been reciprocated in health matters with the Argentine Republic, with those accrediting permanent residence, and considering emergency or emergency cases. "

Said insurance It would have a maximum duration of thirty days from his contract.