Day 2 was filled with learning! The day started out with great hotel coffee and us listening and getting to know Dr. Novick. Meeting him was so exciting by how intelligent you knew he was just when he started talking. Then, we met with Louis Gimenez , who talking to us about the Ministry of Health and the role he had from 2017-2019. He also told us Argentinas statistics of health when he was in office. After, we toured the hospital and Grant gave his speech about advanced practice care. It was super interesting to see how the nurses reacted to what an NP does in a day and how that would look in their hospital.

Today Dr. Novick described the Argentine healthcare system as a giant frankenstein. Frankenstein is a giant beast that no one can handle, made out of all these different parts mangled together to make him. The healthcare system has all these different working parts, all sort of connected, but really their own separate entity. All of which, is too big to tackle. As in, your arm is your arm, but it is connected to your shoulder and torso. The system is fragmented in this same regard. There are three sections of the system. Public is related to the social security because it took the public sector to make a social security branch from it, and the social security puts money into the private system because certain care is contracted out to them.

What Dr. Novick said today that impacted me more than anything is that the system is not good enough for everyone, but it isn’t bad enough to do anything about. I never thought about healthcare in that regard, because in the US it is such a dire need to get people more affordable care, but that is not the same problem Argentina is facing. Argentinians are covered by the the public system 100%. That care may not be quick, but it is there if you are rich or poor. However, the people living in rural communities, or far from a hospital in general, it can make it extremely difficult to get the care they need. When going into these public facilities people may end up waiting months for a procedure or waiting hours just to be looked at. That leads to people that are still not getting the best care that they can and suffering. But, at the foundation, there is free healthcare and some people see that as good enough, then focus on the next problem.