Today is day 9, and I can’t believe we only have a couple days left here in Argentina!! Yesterday, we went to the Evita Perón museum and Parque de La memoria, which were both extremely interesting, and we posted one blog post per project group. Today, we had an early wake up time, but the day went great at Universidad Austral. Ever since we got our “Universidad Austral” bag and notebook, I have been curious to see what it was like at that campus, and how it compares to the other university (Universidad Nacional de la Matanza) that we went to last week. Here are some pretty campus pictures:

After an hour bus ride, we first arrived at the hospital that is on Austral’s campus. This hospital is a private hospital, and it was extremely nice on the inside. One thing that I noticed about the private hospitals we’ve been to is that they seem very quiet and there are not many people walking around in the main hallways. There were some aspects about the delivery model that were strikingly different between Austral’s hospital and Swiss medical. When we visited and listened to people from Swiss Medical, they were very adamant about getting patients in and out, and seemed very efficient with their waiting times. For example, Swiss Medical’s emergency departments had the “shock rooms” where they implemented a 6 hour clock, in which they needed to be fast with trying to solve the emergency. Since there are so many emergencies coming into the hospital, this process helps Swiss Medical in the efficiency of their delivery of healthcare. With Austral, we were told that there were long waiting times, and it can sometimes take multiple hours/a whole day of waiting. Additionally, Austral hospital seems like they have more of an academic focus and a lot of outside payers, while Swiss Medical relies heavily on their own companies, such as their insurance company.

After the hospital, we headed over to the Palliative care center, which is hospice. We did not see much of the facility, but upon listening to one of the doctor’s, one of their objectives “isn’t to add days to their life, but to add life to their days”. This phrase was very interesting to me and I jotted it down in my notes. The goal is to make sure that the days they have left are good ones instead of living miserably/with pain for a longer amount time. Even though this was an emotional visit, I think it was a good stop on the Austral visit.

We then went to lunch/a student mixer, which is where the fun began!! We got empanadas and soda, in which I had chicken and ham and cheese empanadas…yum! I will definitely miss them when I go back home. While eating, Salma, Tori, and I talked with two students at Austral: Maggie and Santiago. They were both extremely nice and we talked a little bit about everything! They are both business students, and they are in their second and third years in college. Maggie took out her Mate cup, and we were all so curious about it since we had been waiting this whole trip to try it! We asked her and Santiago a lot of questions about this Argentinean custom, and I learned that it is almost like a tea/herbal drink, and it is typically shared between the group, and one person finishes the cup at a time, and it is refilled with water after each person finishes, then given to the next person to drink. Additionally, a lot of people have multiple cups a day. We all tried the Mate (pictures below), and I thought it was very good, since I am a fan of tea! I am glad we got the chance to make some new friends and learn more about the culture of Argentina! See you all tomorrow 🙂