Happy Friday! Today started with, again, a beautiful coffee in the morning and finishing the NYT mini in a minute 1:14. We headed into Tigre and went on a boat tour. Others boats drove by and everyone waved that was passing by. That made me so happy that all the people were so friendly. You could tell by how people talked there was such a community aspect to living on these islands. This was probably my favorite part of the day. Going on the boat tour we learned about how the public hospital system works on the boats. Anyone that lives on the islands will either call the ambulance in an emergency or take their boat in to come for an appointment. The hospital itself was made out of a house and had only about four rooms to operate out of. Two of the rooms were actually clinical rooms, one was an administrative room, and one was a supply room. You could tell it was operating lean and mean. The women who was a physician was telling us if you have private healthcare, obras, or public you have to come to this clinic because that is all there is in the area.
The resources in this facility was so limited. One really impactful quote said was “Sometimes we really can’t do anything to help the problem, just manage the pain” and that really stuck with me. Again this relationship between people and providers is full of love and care. These people who are providers are doing it for the love of others.
Delivering primary care is so necessary for everyone, but so hard to come by. Preventing disease such as diabetes, heart disease, and vaccine preventable diseases are all that can be prevented by taking care of your health before it gets out of hand. If you prioritize preventative care, it lessens the demand for primary care. Less people are coming in with diabetes and heart problems if they dealt with it ten years prior. This is so hard for Argentina to do because they are so short handed, so it is hard to take care of people who are really not sick, while others in front of you are dying. The women that led the tour today was talking about how she was always begging the government for insulin for people that had diabetes in her area. There was already struggles within primary care, so preventable care is not even being looked at. Looking at the system as a whole, there is so little money to use that it is hard to get the supplies everyone needs. Every resources is just so in adequately stocked.
Lastly, the day ended with having a wonderful lunch and walking around different shops and seeing all the little trinkets you could buy. I loved just window shopping and visiting.