Ministry of Health (Argentina)

The Ministry of Health (Spanish: Ministerio de Salud) of Argentina is a ministry of the national executive power that oversees, elaborates and coordinates the Argentine national state's public health policy. The ministry is responsible for overseeing Argentina's highly decentralized universal health care system, which according to 2000 figures, serviced over half of the country's population.^[2]

Ministry of Health

Ministerio de Salud
Ministry of Public Works Building, now the headquarters of the Ministry of Health
Ministry overview
Formed	1949; 76 years ago (1949) (first creation)
Preceding Ministry	Secretariat of Public Health
Jurisdiction	Government of Argentina
Headquarters	Ministry of Public Works Building, Av. 9 de Julio 1925, Buenos Aires
Annual budget	$ 70,680,000 (2020)[1]
Minister responsible	Mario Lugones
Child agencies	PAMI
Website	argentina.gob.ar/salud

Since 30 September 2024, the Minister of Health has been Mario Lugones, appointed by President Javier Milei.^[3]

Structure and dependencies

The Ministry of Health and Sustainable Development has a number of centralized and decentralized dependencies. The centralized dependencies, as in other government ministers, are known as secretariats (secretarías) and undersecretariats (subsecretarías), as well as a number of other centralized agencies; each of the undersecretariats of the ministry has a number of directorates and other centralized agencies, which assess different types of healthcare-related areas:^[4][5]

• Secretariat of Health Quality (Secretaría de Calidad en Salud)
  • Undersecretariat of Quality, Regulation and Fiscalization (Subsecretaría de Calidad, Regulación y Fiscalización)
  • Undersecretariat of Services and Institutes Administration (Subsecretaría de Gestión de Servicios e Institutos)
• Secretariat of Health Equality (Secretaría de Equidad en Salud)
  • Undersecretariat of Federal Articulation (Subsecretaría de Articulación Federal)
  • Undersecretariat of Systems Integration (Subsecretaría de Integración de los Sistemas)
• Secretariat of Health Access (Secretaría de Acceso a la Salud)
  • Undersecretariat of Medication and Strategic Information (Subsecretaría de Medicamentos e Información Estratégica)
  • Undersecretariat of Health Strategies (Subsecretaría de Estrategias Sanitarias)

Several "deconcentrated" agencies also report to and depend on the Ministry of Health, such as the Superintendency of Health Services (SSS),^[6] the National Agency of Public Laboratories (ANLAP),^[7] the Comprehensive Medical Attention Program (PAMI), the National Administration of Medicine, Food and Medical Technology (ANMAT),^[8] the Dr. Carlos Malbrán National Administration of Laboratories and Healthcare Institutes (ANLIS Malbrán),^[9] and the National Cancer and National Tropical Medicine Institutes.^[10][11]

There are also a number of decentralized agencies that report to the Ministry, such as the National Psycho-physical Rehabilitation Institute of the South (INAREPS),^[12] the Only Central National Institute for Excision and Implants (Incucai),^[13] the Dr. Manuel Montes de Oca National Summer Camp,^[14] and the Baldomero Sommer, Laura Bonaparte and Alejandro Posadas national hospitals.^[15]

Headquarters

Main article: Ministry of Public Works Building, Buenos Aires

The Ministry of Health has been headquartered in the Ministry of Public Works Building (which, as its name indicates, was originally the headquarters of the Ministry of Public Works) since 1991.^[16] The building is now considered an iconic landmark of Buenos Aires due to the large framed steel images of Eva Perón that hang from the southern and northern facades of the building, located at the interception of 9 de Julio Avenue and Belgrano Avenue, in the Monserrat barrio of Buenos Aires.^[17]

List of ministers

No.	Minister	Party		Term	President
Ministry of Public Health (1949–1955)
1	Ramón Carrillo		Peronist Party	11 March 1949 – 27 July 1954		Juan Domingo Perón
2	Raúl Conrado Bevacqua		Peronist Party	27 July 1954 – 21 September 1955
Ministry of Social Assistance and Public Health (1958–1966)
3	Héctor Noblía		Radical Civic Union	1 May 1958 – 26 March 1962		Arturo Frondizi
4	Tiburcio Padilla		Radical Civic Union	26 March 1962 – 1 July 1963
						José María Guido
5	Horacio Rodríguez Castells		Independent	1 July 1963 – 12 October 1963
6	Arturo Oñativia		Radical Civic Union	12 October 1963 – 28 June 1966		Arturo Illia
Ministry of Public Health and Environment (1981–1983)
7	Amílcar Argüelles		Independent (Military)	29 March 1981 – 12 December 1981		Roberto Viola
8	Horacio Rodríguez Castells		Independent	12 December 1981 – 10 December 1983		Leopoldo Galtieri
						Reynaldo Bignone
Ministry of Health and Social Action (1983–2001)
9	Aldo Neri		Radical Civic Union	10 December 1983 – 15 April 1986		Raúl Alfonsín
10	Conrado Storani		Radical Civic Union	15 April 1986 – 16 September 1987
11	Ricardo Barrios Arrechea		Radical Civic Union	16 September 1987 – 26 May 1989
12	Enrique Beveraggi		Radical Civic Union	26 May 1989 – 8 July 1989
13	Julio Corzo		Justicialist Party	8 July 1989 – 23 September 1989		Carlos Menem
14	Antonio Erman González		Justicialist Party	23 September 1989 – 14 December 1989
15	Eduardo Bauzá		Justicialist Party	14 December 1989 – 20 September 1990
16	Alberto Kohan		Justicialist Party	20 September 1990 – 16 January 1991
17	Avelino Porto		Independent	16 January 1991 – 3 December 1991
18	Julio César Aráoz		Justicialist Party	3 December 1991 – 22 April 1993
19	Alberto José Mazza		Justicialist Party	22 April 1993 – 10 December 1999
20	Héctor Lombardo		Radical Civic Union	10 December 1999 – 20 December 2001		Fernando de la Rúa
Ministry of Health and the Environment (2001–2007)
21	Ginés González García		Justicialist Party	2 January 2002 – 10 December 2007		Eduardo Duhalde
						Néstor Kirchner
Ministry of Health (2007–2018)
22	Graciela Ocaña		Independent	10 December 2007 – 29 June 2009		Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
23	Juan Luis Manzur		Justicialist Party	29 June 2009 – 26 February 2015
24	Daniel Gollán		Independent	26 February 2015 – 10 December 2015
25	Jorge Lemus		Republican Proposal	10 December 2015 – 21 November 2017		Mauricio Macri
26	Adolfo Rubinstein		Radical Civic Union	21 November 2017 – 5 September 2018
Ministry of Health and Social Development (2018–2019)
27	Carolina Stanley		Republican Proposal	5 September 2018 – 10 December 2019		Mauricio Macri
Ministry of Health (2019–Present)
28	Ginés González García		Justicialist Party	10 December 2019 – 19 February 2021		Alberto Fernández
29	Carla Vizzotti		Independent	20 February 2021 – 10 December 2023
30	Mario Russo		Independent	10 December 2023 – 27 September 2024		Javier Milei
31	Mario Lugones		Independent	30 September 2024 – present

See also

• Health care in Argentina
• List of hospitals in Argentina