In Argentina’s current economic state, people throughout the country are opting towards seeking care at hospitals instead of going to primary care providers, although the hospitals do not have the resources to keep up, and primary care providers lack the finances to provide a secure option for people who need health care. This creates a system where public hospitals are not able to provide efficient, accessible, and modern treatments to patients with critical health conditions because too many people are coming into these hospitals to get treated for minor illnesses or injuries, while they should be going to primary care providers instead.

With Argentina’s economic situation being so unstable, people have no way of knowing what happens next. Most people are formally employed and insured, and since Argentina is currently economically unstable, a larger than normal amount of the workforce are losing their jobs along with their insurance. Those who are laid off, along with their families, have to depend on public hospitals for health care, leaving primary care with a lack of patients. Public hospitals vary in areas such as quality of patient care, wait time, resources, and ratio of health care providers per patient, leading many people to leave their municipality for further public hospitals in order to receive better care. This causes an increase of people whose insurance does not fund the public hospital they are going to. In turn, the hospital does not have adequate funds to properly provide treatment to patients from their municipality along with others, and those who are in the hospital’s municipality are unfairly not getting the care they paid for through their taxes. It is also important to address the issue that public hospitals often do not have a secure way of verifying their patients insurance (if they have it). These hospitals have a lack of resources to properly process, causing the hospital to cover the cost for more patients than they should be.

Accessibility, equipment, and technology prevent public hospitals from having enough financial stability. A majority of the paperwork and data kept by hospitals are recorded physically and can easily get lost or misplaced, which is why many hospitals lack databases. Without databases, it is very difficult to push for change because you are working with no previous numbers and evidence. Bringing more awareness to primary care by taking back money from public hospitals will help redistribute both the patients and funding. One way San Isidro Public Hospital is working towards this is supplying a truck that goes around with health care resources, indenting it to increase accessibility and limit the amount of people coming to their hospital with minor medical issues.