Workers at the Garrahan Hospital have called for an open town hall meeting to be held this Thursday, November 13th, at 4 PM in the central hall of Garrahan, located at Combate de los Pozos 1881 in Buenos Aires City. The call was issued by the Association of Professionals and Technicians of the Hospital (APyT) in response to attempts by authorities to sanction workers and new government announcements about labor and pension reforms. Norma Lezana, the General Secretary of APyT, stated: 'We will unconditionally support retirees and all sectors of workers who are fighting to stay within the labor system, in an economy that is daily destroying Argentine jobs, both formal and informal.' Lezana also denounced 'the attempt by the hospital's administrator, Dr. Mariano Pirozzo, and the Minister of Health, Mario Lugones, to sanction unions through disciplinary actions and even threaten to fire workers' who led the struggle. She warned: 'We are going to organize and they will find the same resistance they encountered when they tried to destroy our hospital.' In response to what she called 'a misinformation campaign driven by five or six communicators who act as government spokespeople,' Lezana clarified: 'Garrahan has nine hectares, and no protest, assembly, or artistic intervention activities take place near patient rest areas; imagine that we are the ones who care for them 24/7, so the misinformation from a television studio by people who have never set foot in Garrahan is shameless and dehumanizing.' Lezana also mentioned the demands of the disability collective and the university, which have achieved positive laws in Congress, and stated that the government should respond in the same way it did for Garrahan, since the vetoes by Milei were rejected. The announcements of labor and pension reforms by the national government are very concerning. The best proof of this is the support from the families who back us and accompany us.' Finally, Lezana recalled that Garrahan handles over 600,000 annual consultations, treats 40% of the country's children and adolescents with cancer, and performs around 100 transplants per year, making it the country's most important high-complexity pediatric center and one of the largest in the region: 'In every labor action, patient care is never interrupted; on the contrary, our colleagues double their efforts while others carry the hospital's flag high to stop the bleeding from resignations, which already exceeds 300 under this government and which we hope will cease with the increase we recently achieved through this union and social struggle that we carry forward not only as a union but as the Argentine people,' she emphasized. Participation in the town hall can be in person or virtual, aiming to 'strengthen unity and coordination among workers, union and social organizations, human rights groups, retirees, people with disabilities, journalists, communicators, press photographers, university and cultural collectives, among others'.
