Authorities from the Ministry of Public Health (MSPBS) and the Social Security Institute (IPS) formalized working groups yesterday to expand the “integrated hospitals” model to various areas of the country's interior. The initiative seeks to optimize infrastructure, equipment, and human resources, expanding healthcare coverage for both insured and uninsured individuals.
The model, which already has the Integrated Hospital of Ayolas (Misiones) as a reference, provides for the sharing of physical spaces, medical diagnostic technologies, and specialized personnel, such as therapists and pediatric surgeons. The Director of Public Health Networks and Services, Gustavo Ortiz, explained that integration aims to address the shortage of specialists by unifying the available rosters in each region to cover shifts and on-call duties more efficiently.
Unlike agreements implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic, which generated accumulated financial debts, the new scheme provides for a compensation mechanism based on services, not direct monetary transactions. “It is well provided for in the clauses. This compensation mechanism would be carried out through a detailed study of everything that the provision entails,” Ortiz stated.
Pharmacy and laboratory areas will maintain autonomous management to safeguard the pension funds and the respective budgets of each entity. In emergency or shortage situations, one institution must immediately cover the demand of the other.
The National Association of IPS Insured views the coordination favorably but imposes conditions of transparency and active participation in monitoring. President Julio López stated: “We set as a condition for it to work that it occurs within a framework of transparency and that the process be participatory, fundamentally with the union organizations representing the insured.” The association fears that IPS infrastructure, financed exclusively by workers and employers, may be absorbed by general demand without proper compensation.
The technical committees defined a priority expansion agenda for this year, including areas such as Concepción, San Pedro, Caaguazú, Itapúa, Alto Paraná, Central, and Cordillera. The focus is on optimizing diagnostic services, consolidating pediatric and adult Intensive Care Units (ICU), and expanding the capacity to absorb high-complexity patients.
The insured emphasize that current integrated centers still face problems such as shortages of supplies and delays in scheduling appointments, and that integration alone does not solve underlying issues without internal administrative reforms.