René Favaloro, who developed coronary bypass surgery, shot himself after his foundation went unpaid by Argentina's health insurers

René Favaloro graduated in medicine at La Plata in 1949 and settled as a country doctor in Jacinto Aráuz, La Pampa, in 1950. In 1962 he went to the Cleveland Clinic. There, about 1967, he developed coronary artery bypass grafting. He returned to Argentina and set up the Favaloro Foundation for research, teaching and complex surgery. Most of its patients were treated free. The state subsidy ended in 1997. Insurers and state hospitals owed the foundation about US$18 million. On 29 July 2000 he wrote a farewell letter. It said the foundation's finances were hopeless, that the social insurer PAMI had owed about 1.9 million pesos since 1994 or 1995, and that layoffs had begun. He wrote, "I have been defeated by a corrupt society that controls everything." He asked to be cremated and his ashes scattered near Jacinto Aráuz. He shot himself in the chest. President Fernando de la Rúa declared a national day of mourning. A year later the foundation had cut its staff from 1,100 to 850. It was still owed more than 15 million; the insurer IOMA alone owed 4 million pesos. His ashes were scattered at Jacinto Aráuz, where a museum in his name opened in 2003.