Today was our second/third day in Argentina! We start bright and early at 8:30 a.m. traveling to the Buenos Aires Government building. When we arrived, we had the opportunity to meet with the current Deputy Minister of Health of CABA, Dr. Daniel Ferrante. During his presentation, he broke down the public sector of the Argentinian healthcare system in the city of Buenos Aires and his various duties. For example, Dr. Ferrante is the sub-secretary of health for the entire city of Buenos Aires, meaning he is responsible for each of the 34 hospitals as well as the delivery systems and emergency medicine services throughout the city. After the presentation with Dr. Ferrante, we then traveled back to the Universidad de Austral to speak with Dr. Gabriel Leverstein. Dr. Leverstein is the current Director of the Obra Social de Comercio (union of retail workers). The Obra Social de Comercio is the largest union in Argentina, so it was an immense privilege to hear Dr. Leverstein explain the various forms of unions as well as how much of an intense impact inflation has on their function. Unions heavily rely on the economy, number of workers, and government system and results. This presentation with Dr. Leverstein really opened my eyes as to how complex the system of unions is. A piece of information that immediately stuck out to me was that every worker in Argentina must join a union. As inflation has intensely increased, this has caused the average $5.70 USD to increase to $13.80 USD per month for full beneficial coverage that would be in total around $30 USD. But this does not pertain to those who work as self-employers or are paid under the table. Those who work in the monotributo, or a system similar to the black market, only have to pay $6 USD for total coverage due to the government not having full knowledge on how much they truly make. To round up our activities today, we had a three-and-a-half-hour bus tour of some of the neighborhoods that surround Buenos Aires. The three we were able to visit were La Boca, San Telmo, and Plaza de Mayo. Each neighborhood had its own hidden gems and were all different from the next; it was definitely one of the highlights so far! I cannot wait to see what else we do tomorrow. Hasta luego 🙂