An early wake started our long day of learning and exploring. The first stop was a meeting with the current Ministry of Health of Buenos Aires. He further explained some of the concepts we were learning. He explained his job and how it is that the Ministry does. Today I discovered just how different the government health sector is to the United States and the challenges it brings. One thing I found surprising is he explained how the unions have a lot of power over the sector, and it poses challenges. A big part of these challenges are the budget, the unions set the wages and also the budget is hard to predict because of the unknown amount of people using the public healthcare system. Because different countries and provinces can use Beunos Aires’ hospitals it proves to be challenging to predict costs.
Our next meeting was with the head of the largest and most powerful union. Here we discussed how complicated this system is with the political turmoil Argentina is currently experiencing. One thing I found ironic was here he said he too struggles with not having enough power and being stuck with budget issues. I think the most shocking thing was parts of their system seemed totally obscure to us but to them was just how it works. One example of this was within the unions, you only have to declare someone as a girlfriend to be added to your insurance, even if it is not true they can not ask because it is considered rude. In America this could be as extreme as being considered insurance fraud. Today made me realize a lot of the power is actually in the people.
After a quick lunch we stopped by the hotel to change and walked to IES for a city tour. Our guide took us around 3 neighborhoods in the city. The first stop was May Square in Plaza de Mayo, which was home to the presidential house, the cathedral, the national treasury and a bunch of other historical buildings. Our guide was extremely knowledgeable and told us so many stories about the area. Our next stop was San Telmo where we looked through a market filled with different foods and vendors. The final stop on our tour was the colorful streets of La Boca. Fun vendors lined the streets leading up to the river. Today was such a great way to see the culture and beauty of Buenos Aires and I can’t wait to see what tomorrow has in store for us!