Today started off as a crazy day. We had to take taxis to the private hospital which was my first time riding in one here. The drivers here are really crazy and barely ever follow the traffic laws! Our first lecture was with the former Minister of Health, Josefina Medrana, who worked in the province of Salta. Salta is a very rural area and is surrounded by mountains. She spoke about her time as minister of health which was during covid. During this time Salta experienced many hardships because they were so isolated from the rest of the country. She spoke about these people called healthcare agents who are trained professionals who would ride horses, take boats, etc. to reach people in these rural areas. Kind of like a mobile clinic. I thought it was very interesting how as the Minister of Health, Josefina had the power to shut down the city and hospitals without any permission from the federal government. Our next stop was a meeting at a public hospital with the director of that hospital. He also spoke to us about covid and how they dealt with it. For Argentina, many of the hospitals actually benefited from covid. Now, many of the hospitals have newer technologies and they utilize electronic medical records which were not used before. We also got a tour of the public hospital and it was very different from the private. This hospital had a lot more people in it and was less updated. Many people rely on this hospital because it is the best public hospital in the city of Buenos Aires. Another thing that I learned about today was the impact of federalism on healthcare. Federalism is the sharing of power between the national and state governments or in this case the provinces. This affected healthcare because during covid the national government had no real power over the provinces and their decisions. Overall it was a very successful day. We also went and toured a cemetery which was very interesting. I’ll talk to you guys tomorrow!