“It's terrible, especially if the person doesn't have the money to buy it.
These are people who leave frustrated, clients we know from the neighborhood.
We know their lives.
You feel it on this side of the counter.”
The speaker is the employee of a pharmacy in Lugano.
The clients he refers to are retirees who expect PAMI to deliver adult diapers and dressings.
Either they don't get them or it is a humiliating odyssey for them to get a package.
Here, why this happens and when it will be normalized.
Clarín
toured metropolitan pharmacies, spoke with relatives of retirees and with chambers that bring together pharmacies from all over the country.
Those that must deliver free diapers through PAMI are about 6,000, about half of those in the national territory.
Although fluctuations in the stock of adult diapers are not unusual, several pharmacists shared that
this summer was one of the longest periods with almost zero supply
.
It lasted all of January and part of February.
The situation now is varied: there are pharmacies that do not have stock and many others have had it for about a week, but most report having “a little”, “only a few sizes” or “depending on the day”.
A pharmacist from Villa del Parque said that "luckily" they already had them, but later clarified that
"only one package per size."
We should not forget that many of the older adults who need these elements receive pensions of 200,000 pesos per month.
They are
below the poverty line
and do not always have the financial support of a family member.
The grandson of a retiree from Boulogne, in the northern part of Buenos Aires, said that, after
exhausting the search in all the pharmacies in her area
and unsuccessfully calling the member assistance telephone number, his grandmother had to opt for the furthest ones: after a After a couple of days of searching and
three shipments
, he finally found a pharmacy with stock of PAMI dressings.
Just as the State can ignore it, empathy
with the retiree can
also falter in pharmacies .
In one of the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Recoleta they confirmed that they did not have stock of diapers and dressings throughout January.
Now, however, they received some sizes: “Retirees who ask, we see every day, but why they deliver little or nothing, we don't know.
We do not investigate the reason.
Maybe because it does not represent a profit for the pharmacy.”
At the National Institute of Social Services for Retirees and Pensioners (INSSJP, better known as PAMI), an organization now led by Esteban Leguizamo, they do not deny the situation.
Why are diapers and dressings missing from PAMI?
It was a push and pull in the price agreement between PAMI and the diaper manufacturers that caused short circuits that led to the shortage that was still perceived this Friday, although the organization clarified that "the supply will be
regularized in the coming days
in all pharmacies in the PAMI network.”
They added that “there is a current agreement between PAMI and the pharmaceutical chambers that has been updated with the change in management and that guarantees the dispensation of absorbent toiletries in pharmacies.
"No member who needs the input will be left without diapers."
But why so much supply problem?
A specialized source in the sector who asked not to be mentioned shared
how the diaper delivery circuit works.
“PAMI first contracts the supply of diapers based on a certain price.
Distribution to pharmacies is carried out by ADEM, the association that brings together drugstores throughout the country.
What happened is that there was a tug-of-war with the prices of the suppliers, that is, the diaper manufacturers.
That is now resolved, but the marketing channel is perhaps still settling,” he explained.
The whole problem dates back to September 2023. We are in a context of rising prices and general conflict over imports, since the Government – almost commanded by Sergio Massa – does not sell dollars to importers, which causes them to increase their debts with their suppliers abroad.
Like almost everything sold in the country, diapers also contain
imported supplies
.
The gradual import led to a smaller supply and, therefore, to an increase in prices that PAMI, evidently, did not accept so easily.
Diapers and the freedom to choose by Luana Volnovich
At the end of September, the difficulties translated into a bid and the then director of the organization, Luana Volnovich, decided to suspend the free provision of diapers and deposit a kind of "bonus" so that members who had processed to obtain diapers could buy “
those who wanted
.”
See this post on Instagram
A post shared by Luana Volnovich (@luanavolnovich)
Everything was communicated in a pretentious campaign.
An attempt was made to show a supposed benefit when going through a difficult negotiation.
The tone, furthermore, was ridiculous and even advanced what is now a misleading libertarian slogan: #LaLibertadDeElegir, because “
now you can also choose the brand of your diapers and where to buy them
.”
Who can choose what they can't buy?
The consequence was that
countless retirees never received the promised money.
Many others who had received the deposit used the money to buy, for example, food.
The erratic bonus meant that a few days before the change of presidential command, already in December, a new agreement was signed with the diaper companies.
However, not with all of them.
The troubles of older adults
We finally get to the heart of the problem.
The diaper companies that historically have an agreement with PAMI are five:
Hisan
(the manufacturers of the famous Comodín brand),
Italpañal, Lenterdit, Liberty
and
Nochísimo
.
Only the last two agreed to participate in a new agreement with PAMI.
The first three "were dropped," said the source consulted, and only at the beginning of February did they agree again with PAMI, which, by the way, is the largest social organization in the country, with
five million members
.
As is easy to deduce, the shortage of suppliers generated a bottleneck and the consequent lack of diapers.
Now, the marketing chain is being reestablished, they say in the pharmacy chambers and in the PAMI.
Thus, complaints about this issue should soon fade away.
There is, of course, no shortage of other problems.
In the Ombudsman's Office for the Elderly, represented by Eugenio Semino, they explained it clearly: “We hardly receive complaints about a lack of diapers, but a lot of retirees tell us that the quality of those they give now has
changed.
That they are giving them worse diapers
.”
As with ADEM, the chamber that brings together drugstores,
Clarín
tried to communicate with the diaper bag manufactured by Comodín, one of the most frequently delivered to Buenos Aires pharmacies.
The intention was to consult about a potential lowering of production costs, in this context of rampant inflation and falling consumption.
They explained that they do not give interviews.
MG