Ministry of Health Creates Integrity Plan

Resolutions No. 436/2023 and 439/2023 of the National Ministry of Health were published in the Official Gazette on March 15, 2023. Through these, the Ministry of Health approved its Integrity Plan and created an Integrity and Public Ethics Reporting Channel.

 

Integrity Plan

Although the Ministry of Health has taken several actions to promote transparency and integrity, this regulation seeks to systematize these efforts in the Integrity Plan, under the responsibility of the Ministry’s National Directorate of Institutional Relations and Integrity.

 

1.a. Main Goals

 

On the one hand, the regulation seeks to promote integrity, transparency, and anti-corruption practices within the agency. In this sense, it states that the Ministry of Health does not tolerate acts of corruption, bribery, fraud, or any other contrary to the ethical principles that govern its activity. On the other hand, the regulation aims at developing control mechanisms and procedures.

 

1.b. Specific goals and activities

 

The Integrity Plan has five specific goals aligned with the strategic guidelines of the Anti-Corruption Office for:

• Improving the institutional framework of agencies and the development of public affairs management.
• Promoting integrity environments, cross-perspectives, and transparency levels in management.
• Establishing a social participation agenda through, for example, public hearings and the participatory drafting of regulations.
• Optimizing access to information policies and to available transparency tools.
• Developing integrity and transparency policies within the scope of deconcentrated and decentralized agencies, state hospitals, and Comprehensive Medical Care Services for the Community (SAMIC) within the  Ministry of Health.

 

Further, the Integrity Plan includes sixteen activities within each specific goal. These activities include, among others:

 

• Creating a network of Integrity Liaisons across the Ministry of Health and all the agencies operating under its scope.
• Standardizing administrative processes.
• Implementing the Register for Integrity and Transparency of Businesses (RITE) among the Ministry’s third-party suppliers.
• Creating an institutional channel for reporting acts of corruption and lack of ethics.
• Establishing a centralized and unique stock and inventory monitoring system.
• Using technological tools and digital resources to facilitate accountability, transparency, and access to strategic information.
• Digitalizing the national registration process for health care providers.

 

2. Public Ethics Channel

 

Within the framework of the Integrity Plan, the resolutions created the Public Ethics Channel and approved its guidelines. They created as well the Public Ethics Channel Reception Online Form and determined that all matters received through the Public Ethics Channel will be confidential.

 

2.a. Purpose, scope, and general principles

 

The Public Ethics Channel will receive queries and reports regarding any action involving alleged administrative misbehavior, corruption offenses, ethical misconduct, and/or gender and labor violence within the scope of the Ministry of Health and/or the decentralized agencies under its jurisdiction.

 

According to the Guidelines, any irregular, illicit, or criminal behavior can be reported, including:

 

1. administrative misbehaviors 

2. corruption crimes

3. ethical misbehaviors, including any labor or gender discrimination or violence (article 4 of the Guidelines).

 

The National Directorate of Institutional Relations and Integrity will manage the Public Ethics Channel and will be responsible for receiving and forwarding the reports to the corresponding areas (article 5 of the Guidelines).

 

2.b. Identity of the informant

 

The Public Ethics Channel aims to protect the informant’s identity of any retaliation or intimidation, and to ensure the integrity of the procedures carried out through this channel. In this sense, the informant may choose to file the report:

 

1. identifying themselves
2. not identifying themselves
3. anonymously (article 8 of the Guidelines).

 

2.c. Reporting requirements

 

The report must comply with the mandatory requirements including filing the report with the corresponding details and with data referring to the place, time, and manner of commission. It may also have to comply with additional requirements such as identifying  the informant and the person being reported, filing ancillary documents, and classifying the behaviors (article 9 of the Guidelines).

 

2.d. Initiation and referral of proceedings

 

Reports must be filed through the Public Ethics Channel Reception Online Form in the Ministry’s official website. All forms must be confidential, regardless of the identity option the informant selects (article 15 of the Guidelines).

 

Once the National Directorate of Institutional Relations and Integrity receives a report, it must send an official communication with the report to the authority in charge of the matter. The authority must respond to the communication within fifteen working days, informing the decision taken regarding the case. The Guidelines also provide for the intervention of the Anti-Corruption Office, when public officials acting in other state agencies are involved (article 17 of the Guidelines).

 

The procedure within the Public Ethics Channel must ensure the confidential treatment of information and protect the identity of the informant according to the provisions and exceptions to the duty to inform in the Data Protection Law No. 25326 (article15 of the Guidelines).

 

Implementing the Integrity Program and the Public Ethics Channel are fundamental steps for an institutional improvement of public agencies, particularly in an area as sensible as health, where professionals and public and private health institutions co-exist every day and nurture the Argentinian health sector to improve the health of Argentinians.