Today was another early wake up time with a nice bus ride to catch some more sleep before we started our day. Our first stop was to a public hospital in the province of Buenos Aires called Matanza Hospital. This hospital had a very different arrangement from the other hospitals we visited, as they only had two floors that were very wide. The first floor had all of their inpatient departments while the second floor was all outpatient services. This hospital is also in a province that is not as wealthy as the others we have been to, and you could definitely see the difference when looking in the rooms and at the resources they had available. Everyone at this hospital was very nice and loved answering our questions. The top floor also had a lot of spaces for outpatient services including vaccination centers, a lab, pediatric offices, and even had a room dedicated to providing safe and legal abortions for mothers. To me, I felt as though the quality of care and services provided didn’t differ much from the other public hospitals, and still maintained the high standard of patient care.
After this hospital visit, we then visited the Universidad de la Matanza. This is a national institution which means that it is government funded and education is free. This university had a much larger campus and had a vibrant student life. One major difference about universities in Argentina is that all students must commute to school, and the students we spoke to today said that it is usually a two hour mix of buses and subways to get to school each day. This was shocking to me, but they explained how it was actually very normal across the whole country. This university had a lot more of a similar feel to Pitt unlike the Universidad de Austral which didn’t have much of a campus feel. One difference with Matanza is that they offer a large athletic program, and pride themselves on providing these opportunities to students. We got to visit a bunch of their buildings including a recently built theater, innovation suites, and even got to see the simulation labs of their nursing school. These were all very similar to Pitt and had a lot of the same resources that we do.
We ended the day with an incredible graffiti and street art tour in the neighborhood of Palermo. Almost every building had beautiful artwork displayed by different street artists, and there was a large appreciation and respect for the arts here. Each one was so vibrant and told a story, and it was so fun to go around to the different streets and see how each piece lit up the area. I really enjoyed the style of art that was displayed too, and loved the neighborhood of Palermo itself. Our tour guide was super fun and interactive, and told us a lot of the stories and meaning behind some of the pieces we saw. I was sad that this was the first time we visited Palermo, as I am now itching to get in a taxi and go back and visit more of the area. Tomorrow is going to be a great day as we get to sleep in for a while, and get to visit a bunch more museums as well. Stay tuned for what art we see, and begin the bittersweet countdown to Friday when we fly home 🙁
