Argentine clinics struggle despite COVID-19 crisis

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — As COVID-19 deaths climb to new peaks in Argentina, the intensive care unit at the San Andres clinic in the capital is oddly silent.

The beds are empty. The monitors for the respirators are still in their factory wrappings. Cabinets stand full of unused medicines and syringes. It’s been that way for weeks now, even as other hospitals fill to capacity.

While the pandemic has swelled the need for hospital beds, many private clinics say they’re struggling to survive. The pandemic has pushed away many non-COVID patients and the hospitals say they are losing money on coronavirus sufferers because the government insurance program doesn’t pay enough to meet costs.

It’s a problem that private hospitals have had in many parts of the world, including the United States, due to forced cancellation of more profitable elective treatments to focus on COVID-19 emergencies.

About 10 private clinics in the greater Buenos Aires area have closed over the past year due to financial problems, eliminating capacity for 700 patients, according to an association of private clinics.

Meanwhile, COVID deaths in Argentina topped 660 on Wednesday — the highest yet in the pandemic — and hospital occupancy rates of 90%.

The closure of San Andres itself was precipitated by the death of the hospital’s director and owner of COVID-19 at the start of the year. As courts began determining who should inherit, the potential heirs apparently were unwilling to step into an operation running at a loss.

“They don’t want to continue with this open. They told us, ‘The only thing we are inheriting are debts,’” said Alicia Rey, the chief of surgical services and a representative of the clinic’s workers

Amid the legal uncertainty, the 144 workers were informally let go — collecting a...