It’s now day five of our trip to Buenos Aires and it keeps getting better and better. Today we ventured out to La Matanza, which is something similar to a county, like Bucks County. La Matanza is relatively close, the drive was about forty-five minutes West of the city of Buenos Aires. The first thing on the agenda for day number five was a tour of a public hospital called Hospital de Agudos Paroissien. Visiting this hospital was a much different experience than the other public hospital we had previously visited. The one we previously visited, which was called Hospital General de Agudos, was one of the nicest public hospitals in all of Argentina. Being that it is in the city of Buenos Aires, which is the wealthiest part of Argentina, definitely plays a part in it. However, the hospital we visited today was located in a much poorer community compared to before, and it really showed. From the outside, I would have never expected that building to be a hospital, and even after getting inside it was still hard to believe we were in a hospital. This place was incredibly run down, paint was peeling off the wall, dust and rust on almost everything, and random cats walking around. To myself, this is completely out of this world and something like I’d never seen before, but to all the Argentine people there it was just another day. Seeing the differences between these hospitals really brings into question the idea of equity vs. equality. Equality is the idea that everyone gets the same thing, but equity is giving everyone the opportunity to do the same. Hospitals in Buenos Aires seem to be chasing equality, wanting everyone to have access to healthcare, which they do. However, that access does not mean they actually receive it. Many of the hospitals in Argentina are incredibly inefficient as some people are forced to wait months before they actually get the coverage they require. Allowing people to actually have the ability to receive the coverage they need is what Argentines are striving for, and that is the idea of equity. So if Argentina wants to increase their ability to properly administer healthcare to people when they need it, they need to step back from trying to make everything equal, and make it equitable. After our tour of the hospital we visited a public college in La Matanza called the Universidad Nacional de La Matanza. This was an amazing experience. We took a tour of the school and talked with various people within their nursing program. But the best part was when we got to interact with the students of the university. Most of them speak only Spanish, so talking to them was both fun and informative. Everyone was incredibly nice and welcoming, I couldn’t have asked for anything better.
