The Elderly Advocate, Eugenio Semino, denounced a humanitarian crisis for retirees in Argentina, stating that the health and food crisis forces older adults to choose between eating or buying their medicines. In an interview with Splendid AM990 radio, Semino affirmed that the elderly population is going through a triple crisis that encompasses food, health, and housing, without the political sector taking note of the severity of the scenario. The specialist warned that many retirees have begun to fraction their medication doses or suspend treatments for asymptomatic diseases, such as hypertension, because the pension benefit is insufficient to cover the basic basket. “If you have to choose between a medicine and a plate of food, immediacy leads you to make decisions in daily life that politicians have no idea about,” he emphasized. At the same time, he denounced that social works “are rejecting new retirees to refer them directly to PAMI,” saturating a system that already has strong restrictions on its coverage of free medicines. “Social works no longer accept retirees and send them to PAMI,” Semino added. “Today, retirees choose which medicine to take and which to give up,” Semino added. The ombudsman also pointed against the pharmaceutical industry and its relationship with political power, ensuring that the cost of medicines in the country can be up to 15 times higher than in other regional countries due to the financing of electoral campaigns by laboratories. Regarding income policy, he described the freezing of the bonus as a “nonsense,” stating that this measure eroded the purchasing power of the most vulnerable sectors to sustain the fiscal surplus. Semino concluded that the lack of access to basic supplies, such as diapers or sunscreen, not only deteriorates physical health but also condemns thousands of elderly people to isolation and depression in the final stretch of their lives.
