A journalistic investigation has raised suspicions about the management of public funds at the El Dique Hospital, located in Ensenada and under the jurisdiction of the Buenos Aires Ministry of Health led by Nicolás Kreplak, after detecting payments of nearly $400 million for supposed on-call replacements since 2024.
The facility, specialized in rehabilitation and with fewer than 80 beds, does not have an external on-call service. Despite this, the executive director, María de las Nieves Yezzi Herrera, submitted over a thousand “on-call replacements” to the provincial government through monthly spreadsheets, according to an investigation released by Telenoche and Clarín.
The analyzed documents cover the period from June 2024 to June 2026 and total $379,038,592. However, records for some months are missing, leading consulted sources to estimate that the total amount could exceed $600 million.
The spreadsheets include doctors, biochemists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, and nurses who appear to be receiving additional payments for supposed on-call duties of up to 24 hours. In January of this year, for example, the hospital reported payments of $46.2 million, while in May the figure reached $45.4 million.
Specialties and replacements under suspicion
Among the inconsistencies detected are professionals who allegedly performed tasks outside their specialty. An occupational therapist appears to be replacing clinical doctors, a speech therapist replacing therapy professionals, and an obstetrician replacing a dermatologist and clinical doctors.
