📰 From the news · Impersonating a real college/agent
Nine death certificates signed under another doctor's licence: the 'falsa médica' who worked hospital shifts in Chaco, Argentina, from August 2025
In Argentina, medical licences (matrículas) are issued by provincial health ministries or medical colleges, and a public hospital is supposed to match the number to the person before letting them cover a guardia. In Chaco province, a woman worked emergency shifts in at least two public hospitals for months on a licence that belonged to someone else. The case became a provincial scandal in April and May 2026.
According to Cadena 3, citing Noticias Argentinas (24 April 2026), the director of Región Sanitaria 2, Orlando Di Núbila, filed a complaint at the Machagai police station after staff at the hospitals of Quitilipi and Presidencia de la Plaza raised concerns about a doctor's lack of training. Her identity document did not match the matrícula she was using, which belonged to a professional working in the private sector; she had been in the health system since August 2025 and had signed nine death certificates with her own signature and stamp under that licence. Infobae (27 April 2026) reported that Lidia Mabel Ojeda, 43, was arrested in Santos Lugares, Buenos Aires province, after a national warrant sought by prosecutor Marcelo Soto of Fiscalía de Investigación Penal N° 3 in Sáenz Peña, and that the real licence holder had no idea his number was in use. A search of a home in the San Cayetano district of Sáenz Peña found medical supplies, nursing uniforms, patient documents and partly burned papers, including a stamp of the Quitilipi hospital. Her lawyer told Data Chaco she was not a fugitive and had planned to present herself.
Chaco Día por Día reported on 14 May 2026 that Soto had formalised a charge of homicide with eventual intent, which carries eight to 25 years, after new complaints, among them a 26-year-old man whose leg was amputated after allegedly botched wound care, and that prosecutors were reviewing about 1,232 guard-area attendances and ten death certificates. On 28 May the outlet reported that the provincial government had joined the case as a complainant and that the health minister would face questioning in the legislature; deputy Carlos Salom said the controls "are provided for, but have not been complied with".
The failure was a missing cross-check. A licence number was accepted without matching it to the identity document and to the licence holder's own record, and the real holder, who works privately, did not know his number was in use. Staff noticed the lack of training; the paperwork did not.
For anyone checking a doctor or an institution, match three things: the person, the identity document and the register entry. A number alone proves nothing. In Chaco the truth came out after months of shifts, with deaths and an amputation now under investigation; matching the person to the licence holder's record in August 2025 would have stopped her before the first shift.
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This is a news-sourced case summary written by the TrustMBBS team, not a first-person account; see the sources above. They reflect one person's experience and are not a verdict on any institution. Report your own: Report a scam or tell your story.