At the dawn of his career Gregory Fraga He was part of the medical staff of River Plate for 17 years. With the ‘Millionaire’ he toured the country, Central and South America. No geography came to conquer it until on June 1, 1970, On his first visit to Cañuelas, he decided to settle down to practice as a surgeon and traumatologist, specialties that he developed in the local land for almost five decades until he retired in 2018.
In his first decades in Cañuelas he faced the hardships of the health system and the scarcity of resources of the time. Today, at the age of 85, Dr. Fraga rests in his home on Calle Acuña at 600, while he exploits his passions: days of hiking, listening to classical music and planning a trip.
Fraga was born in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Villa Crespo on June 18, 1937. As a teenager, the future doctor and his family moved to the Buenos Aires district of San Martin. There he attended high school Military High School with the mission entrusted by his humble parents to qualify among the top ten in the classroom since they did not pay the monthly fee. The institution gave him clothing, food, books and culture; he graduated from high school in five years.
Then I study medicine at the University of Buenos Aires “to be useful to others”said Dr. Gregorio Fraga in a talk with InfoCañuelas.
Dante throughout his training worked in different trades in which he lasted very little: he was constantly kicked out for his absences motivated by constant study. In that decade of the ’50s, he was a bank assistant and an insurance company assistant, a telephone operator, a newspaper vendor and a worker ‘at the pique’ in the port to load salted leather.
Laughing, Fraga recalled his strategy to hide the moments as unemployed before his family. “Many times my parents did not know that I was out of work, I went to the bowling alleys, ordered a coffee that would last me four or six hours and read. That way I didn’t have to explain to my mother that she didn’t have a job; she believed that she worked and she spent the money on me”.
After many vicissitudes, on April 17, 1963 he received the title of surgeon and later traumatologist. Years before, she had started working at River for the favor of a friend; He was in the basketball and wrestling teams, he went through the lower soccer teams until he reached the First Division.
Gregorio Fraga license plate, granted in 1963.
His 17 years at the club coincided with the worst streak of the institution, which went through 18 years without becoming champion (1958-1974); a year following Fraga’s departure, the ‘Millionaire’ consecrated himself once more (1975).
During this time He accompanied the team on several tours, “from Mexico to the south, all because they were doing the Pacific tour, which lasted months”. In that hustle and bustle she became involved with stars like Amadeo Carrizo, Ramos Delgado, Oscar ‘Pinino’ Más, Jorge ‘El indio’ Solari, Juan Carlos Sarnari and the Onega brothersamong others.
Finally, since he did not obtain the position of Medical Director of the First Division, he resigned since the salary was very low.
A PLACE TO LIVE
While working in River, Fraga was doing internships in public hospitals. Twelve years he was in Rawson Hospital and following its closure it went through the Piñero, Gutiérrez and Ramos Mejía –all in CABA–, in which he did not receive a salary for almost two decades. “Back then you didn’t get paid for newcomers to medicine. Today everything changed, if you don’t pay recent graduates, they don’t work, and that’s fine”, he pointed out.
He supported himself with River’s salary, which, at least, served him to continue improving himself. He always traveled with the club around the country and abroad, but one idea obsessed him: work in a place in the interior near Buenos Aires so as not to lose contact with the cultural ‘life’ of the Federal Capital of which he was, and is, an unconditional follower.
With this premise, on June 1, 1970, he arrived alone in Cañuelas. “A humble auctioneer invited me to lunch codeguines. His name was Héctor Cirilo Alem. He told me to stay, he got me a rent, a job as a municipal doctor and a telephone. I mightn’t say no to him,” said the retired professional.
In those first decades of the 70s and 80s, here he found “fabulous people who gave themselves. It didn’t have a lock and I never had a problem; now there are bars, double locks, alarms. It changed the spirit of society in general. Still, one greets everyone.”
Gregorio with his parents and sisters.
Cañuelas was the right place for the realization of his goal and, moreover, he did well. From his experiences in his first office, located at 1500 Libertad Street, the doctor recalls the good relationship he cultivated with the Portuguese community that exploited different farms in the district. Later, he definitively relocated his place of work in Acuña to 600.
In the 1970s and 1980s as a doctor at the Miter Hospital -where he worked for ten years without pay- Gregorio Fraga operated on everything (hip, gallbladder, fibroma, kidney, etc.) under conditions that earned him the nickname of ‘war surgeon’, due to the precariousness of the operating room.
“What equipment?, what instruments? I read that they recently lost electricity and I don’t know where they had to operate with the light from their cell phones. If I have done it here! It was almost routine. With a candle, with the sun at night and, if there was one, with a flashlight. We operated everything and nobody was scared. Whoever was available helped me; I did the anesthesia myself, operated on the patient and took him to bed. Everything with the nurse ‘Pocha’ Méndez, an outstanding person who put up with everything, was extraordinary”, recalled the doctor.
“Today, without an electrocardiogram, without analysis, without a pre-anesthesia study, without intermediate or intensive therapy, nothing can be operated on. The requirement is that there is all this to operate, except the simple things. This is all fine, ”he valued. However, the lack of any requirement mentioned –lack of human, technological or building resources– deprived him of carrying out more interventions.
Drawing by an Ecuadorian artist during his time in River.
Fraga retired four years ago (2018) and has not been near the hospital for two. During his career, the Municipality declared him Distinguished Citizen.
Of the almost five decades of service at the Marzetti Fraga, he regrets having died, although he acknowledges that with the current elements they might have been avoided. His career in the public entity had an eight-year parenthesis in which he worked until it closed at the San Martín Clinic (he was one of the founding partners of the project).
After this journey, currently the surgeon lives a modest life, dedicated to literature, listening to classical music and traveling whenever he can. In his youth he played sports like paddle, golf, sky, bicycle, tennis, skating or swimming; and although his age no longer allows him these hobbies, even so He walks regarding twenty kilometers daily.
Finally, when asking him to reflect on his career, he does not hesitate to put everything on the scale: “I did something for my fellow men, I feel satisfaction despite my mistakes and of a non-academic spirit. I always considered myself an individual with a function and fulfilled it. I think that, with some fault, I have complied”.
Marcel Romero.
