Another eventful day has gone by in Buenos Aires! After breakfast at the hotel, we took taxis to Sanatorio de los Arcos and listened to Dra. Josefina Medrano, who was the Ministry of Health of the province “Salta” in Argentina. She is also the first women to take on that role as the ministry of health for that province! We learned about what her role was as the ministry of health and many of the challenges that were presented to her because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the pre-existing problems that were amplified because of the pandemic. The Minister of Health’s role relates to federalism, in which a main principle involved is the distribution of power between the national and state (in Argentina’s case, provincial) government. This impacts healthcare because the national government makes laws for healthcare, but the provinces can also run the healthcare system differently than one another. For example, Dr. Medrano was mentioning how she handled COVID-19 in her province, which is definitely different than how it was handled nationally or in other provinces such as Buenos Aires. Also, she has the power to dictate the emergency however she wants, whether it be changing curfew or shutting down hospitals in her province.

We then went to one of the most well known public hospitals in Buenos Aires, the Fernandez Hospital. We listened to a lecture from the Director of the hospital. This was very informative in helping my group, since our presentation will be on the public delivery system in Argentina. We learned a lot about how the hospitals work and efforts that the director is planning to take to help solve problems presented by COVID-19. We also went on a walk around the hospital, and I noticed many differences between the private hospital that we have been to a couple days ago and the public hospital today.

After the hospital tours, we got lunch at the IES abroad center and then went on a walking tour of the area! We went to a neighborhood called Recoleta and visited the cemetery, in which this experience was full of a lot of history and cool sights. The cemetery had over 4,000 mausoleums, and I definitely would have gotten lost in there if we did not stay with the group! I went with a group to get some souvenirs and McDonalds’s to end the day. We were curious to see if it is different than the United States, but it tasted almost the same to me. The only big difference was the McFlurry options, I got the KitKat McFlurry and it was sooo good! Attached below are some pictures from my day today! I’ll be back tomorrow!!