Former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is recovering at the Otamendi Sanatorium in Buenos Aires following successful emergency surgery for acute appendicitis. The 72-year-old Peronist leader, who is currently serving a six-year sentence under house arrest, was rushed to the medical facility on Saturday afternoon after experiencing “severe abdominal pain.”
This piece of news has triggered within me a recurrent thought and suggestion: why don’t public officials go to public hospitals instead of private ones? Furthermore, why don’t they send their kids to public/state schools? If they did, no doubt all public systems would improve, and the “selected few” would realise first-hand their blatant shortcomings. It should be mandatory for presidents, governors, mayors, etc., so that they could place themselves in the average citizen’s shoes. They should set the example, and in doing so, they would drive improvement of public service as a whole.
Buenos Aires Times, December 27, 2025