Overview

• Authored by Alejandra Barcala, the piece warns that December 2023–December 2024 budget cuts closed HIV, sexual health and epidemiology departments, dismantled ENIA and Médicos Comunitarios, and that leaving the WHO risks cooperation and surveillance.
• From 2019 to 2023, the province closed 18 of 35 psychiatric wards, discharged more than half of long-term residents, expanded mental-health beds in general hospitals by 60%, and lifted discharge subsidies by 553%.
• Since 2024, authorities added 16 community mental-health centers and two residential units for substance-use care, hired about 100 professionals, launched a crisis hotline, and improved access to medications.
• Public hospitals in Buenos Aires Province logged 45,785 mental-health hospitalizations in 2024, up 9% from 2023 and 63% versus 2019.
• National data show 15,807 suicide attempts from April 2023 to April 2025—largely among 15–19-year-olds—and by June 2025 more than half of emergency beds were occupied by acute mental-health cases.