Today started bright and early with about an hour-long bus ride to the University of Austral in Pilar. At the University we were greeted by a delicious breakfast before jumping into the first guest speaker lecture of the trip. During this lecture, led by an alumni of the university’s first nursing class and a teacher/former RN of the university, we learned all about the University of Austral and its hospital. We learned that there are only 30-ish nursing students per graduating class in Austral, and that less than 15 of these students typically graduate. The reason for such a small amount of nursing students is that less people are looking to nursing as a career in Argentina due to a poor public opinion of nurses, low salaries, and low social recognition.
Some of the facts the guest speakers also gave us lots of insight into the Argentine Healthcare System as well as into the private sector. 67% of the nurses at the University of Austral’s hospital have a bachelor’s degree, but that is a very high percentage compared to other hospitals in the country. We also learned about challenges facing Austral’s hospital and one of the major challenges that stuck out to me was issues with the economy. We discussed how the salaries of the medical personnel are debated and negotiated each month because the economy in Argentina fluctuates so much. This causes a major issue for the private hospital as nurses and doctors don’t know how much money their salary for that month will be. This leads to major accounting issues for the hospital as it is hard to plan how much money the hospital must pay their staff for the future. Without being able to plan how much money needs to be allocated to salaries, major budgeting issues arise.
We then toured the University of Austral’s hospital, which is a private hospital, and our first hospital visit of the trip! We visited each of the floors which were all specialized in different areas of medicine, including a pediatric floor, an oncology floor, a post-operation floor, a cardiac care floor, as well as a few others. Even with the economic challenges this private hospital was very nice and seemed very modern. This visit was super interesting, and I am definitely excited to visit some of the other types of hospitals/patient care facilities!
After the hospital we met with some of the University of Austral business and nursing students over lunch. Talking to them was such a good opportunity to learn about the difference in education between the US and Argentina. We also had empanada’s for lunch which were well enjoyed by all!
Tip of the day: Watch out for the pigeons! After the planned excursions for the day, while Lotus and I were walking to get our cash we realized the pigeons will and do fly right up into you as you walk past them.
