We translated this article about an inspiring struggle in a desperate situation because it allows us to learn and gather hope. We are working on subtitles for a video about the hospital occupation – watch this space! On a much smaller scale we are confronted with a similar situation here in Bristol, where the closure of the Acer Detox Unit at Southmead hospital is still on the cards. Read the article, listen to the workers singing, hear what they have to say and get in touch to defend our local health services!
Four days of self-empowerment
In Buenos Aires, health workers and patients are fighting against the closure of their hospital
The Hospital Laura Bonaparte is a model project of the psychiatric reform, with outpatient care and branches in poor neighbourhoods. The Milei government wants to close the hospital, but the hospital workers are fighting back. In October, they occupied their hospital, organised themselves in assemblies, formed commissions and maintained operations. Patients came to support them. After four eventful days, the closure was off the table for the time being. But the next attack came in January 2025, with 200 layoffs. The hospital is currently under threat again.
Alix Arnold, ILA 482
On Friday afternoon, on the 4th of October 2024, Javier Ríos was on his way home like many of his colleagues when he received a WhatsApp message. The ATE union was calling an assembly at the clinic, immediately! It was urgent. The message quickly spread: this time it was not just about redundancies, the entire hospital with more than 500 employees was to be closed on Monday. Javier has been working in the communications department for ten years. He returns to the Bonaparte and goes to the meeting room on the first floor. Colleagues come towards him, crying and cursing. They were excluded from the meeting because they are not members of the ATE union, but of the UPCN, which has a similar number of members at the clinic. Javier reports on this decisive moment: “I was totally annoyed and said that this was not how it should be, that we should all talk about the closure together, regardless of whether we are in one or the other or in no union at all. ATE didn’t want that, so a few colleagues and I suggested going down to the hall and having a meeting with everyone. Then ATE gave the floor to the clinic director! He launched into a tirade, saying that a decree from the ministry could not be discussed but had to be obeyed. The union was left looking pretty bad, which resulted in us getting together independently of their leadership. We stood up and went down into the hall. At this first meeting, we decided to stay in the clinic.”
It was on the cards
Last year, working conditions deteriorated. Formerly, contracts were annual; now they are limited to three months. “You can only plan your life for three months at a time. We have colleagues who have been working here for more than ten years and still don’t have a permanent contract,” reports Sol Valverde. She is a social worker and has been working in a hospital branch in the Villa 21-24 and Zavaleta districts, the largest shantytown in Buenos Aires, for two years. Another branch in Isla Maciel, a poor neighbourhood near the port, was closed in August, laying off 30 people. The workforce had already been decimated by poor conditions. Colleagues quit and migrated to the private sector. This was a fatal development at a time when many people have lost their social insurance coverage due to the economic crisis and are dependent on the public health system. The fact that an entire health centre was closed from one day to the next and colleagues were dismissed was a warning sign for Sol. The Hospital Bonaparte is under the control of the Ministry of Health. So there were concerns that Milei’s campaign against public services would also affect the hospital.
Some colleagues began to prepare for such an attack. They suggested making a video to raise awareness of the hospital’s situation. The ATE union agreed, but wanted to decide when to release it and kept delaying it. The threat of closure from outside then set the deadline. After the colleagues had decided to occupy the hospital, they opened the Instagram account #enluchaelbonaparte and uploaded the finished video. The account soon had 37,000 followers, and the videos received up to 400,000 views.
Support from other hospitals and patients
When the conflict became known, colleagues from other hospitals and health centres immediately came to support. At 4 p.m., the Bonaparte was the subject of the TV news. Patients saw on the news that the hospital where they receive free medication and treatment was to be closed, and they made their way there. “For me it is exemplary that patients have also come to defend their hospital,” says Sol. “Some of them stayed with us for the whole four days and did public relations work by explaining to the many journalists on site how they are treated here and why they are showing solidarity.”
In the 1990s, there was a strong movement in Argentina to abolish the manicomios (‘insane asylums’, see ila 412), which led to a very progressive law in 2010. Instead of internment, there should be outpatient, interdisciplinary care in the neighbourhoods, and the psychiatric institutions should be closed. The ‘Centre for Re-education’ founded during the dictatorship became the Hospital Laura Bonaparte, named after a social psychologist and one of the mothers of Plaza de Mayo. The ministry’s reason for the closure order is, of all things, that there are too few inpatients in the hospital. The many outpatient treatments at the hospital and in its branches are not mentioned at all.
Democracy in practice: assemblies and committees
At the first assembly in the hall on that Friday, it was decided to stay in the hospital and defend it. To make sure that the occupation really was the will of the colleagues and would be supported by everyone, a second vote was taken by show of hands. “That was the first time that a vote was taken at a meeting in the hospital,” says Javier, “before that, we were only informed, nothing was put to the vote.” The result is unanimous.
The colleagues organise themselves into commissions for the various tasks: security, public relations, patient care, food, culture. Many artists come to the Bonaparte and attract even more attention to the hospital with their performances.
There is a meeting every day from Saturday to Tuesday. Now decisions are made at these meetings, not at the works council, the official representative body. Javier reports: “They have lost the power to make decisions because there have been meetings with 150 or 250 colleagues. It was an interesting situation of collective democratic action. On Sunday, more than 250 colleagues gathered in the courtyard, everyone was extremely tense because we didn’t know what would happen on Monday, whether they would send the police. They could also starve us out. What should we do if after 14 days we are running out of medication and other things?” Only the hospital workers attend this meeting. After a lot of discussion, the clinic director is also allowed to attend, bringing with him a new line from the ministry: it is no longer about closure, but about restructuring. Everyone should go back to work on Monday.
Nevertheless, the colleagues decide to mobilise for Monday at 7 a.m. at the Bonaparte. There is another meeting on Sunday with representatives of 150 organisations. At the rally on Monday morning, the workers themselves speak, and at the press conference at 11 a.m., only the delegates of the ATE union speak. The action is ended with a final meeting on Tuesday.
Only a temporary victory
In times when the working class is constantly exposed to new attacks by the Milei government and the trade union federations are hardly able to counter them, the self-organised and successful struggle of the Bonaparte colleagues was a ray of hope. They were able to establish unity against the union’s attempts to divide people and prevent the closure in October. They then prepared for further confrontations. The Instagram account is still running, there is still money in the strike fund and the Bonaparte activists have continued to meet every Friday.
On the 15th of January, the Ministry of Health announced 1,400 layoffs, 200 of them at the Bonaparte Hospital. One of those made redundant was Sol. The departments and outposts are barely able to function with the reduced staff. The colleagues see this as the next attempt to close the Bonaparte. They have gathered on site again to defend their hospital. The conflict is still ongoing at the time of going to press.
The conversation with Sol Valverde and Javier Ríos took place on the 16th of December 2024 in Buenos Aires.
