Today we had the opportunity to visit Austral University. Two professors that have their BSN and are RN’s gave us a lecture on nurses and their place in the healthcare system in Argentina. It was really interesting to find out how undervalued nurses are in the country as a whole. They don’t get paid well and mostly aren’t seen as trustworthy. We walked over to the Austral hospital and were able to get a tour from one of the nurses who works there. He took us to different types of floors and we even got to see some critical care units. The best part of the day was meeting with students from the university. We were given lunch and a case study about healthcare issues and plenty of time to talk. It was amazing hearing about the culture, places, and history of Argentina but also just hearing about her schooling and what she does.

Our prompt for today was to describe one of the challenges that Austral hospital faces as a private hospital: One of the main challenges is attracting and retaining nurses. In Argentina, nurses are paid very poorly and most have to work 2 jobs to survive. They also are not well respect. This leads to nursing leaving to work in different countries or get jobs in different fields. The hospital couldn’t really change or increase the nurses wages due to not having enough funding even though they are private.