Day 3 in Buenos Aires was a busy one! We had another early start to the morning and left the hotel at 8 a.m. To start off the morning, we went to Tigre for a boat ride through the rivers that took us to a public health clinic on one of the islands. This facility serves the entire 200 km of the Tigre Delta. While we were at the clinic, we got to hear from one of the captains of the ambulance boat. He discussed some of the challenges they face while having to travel by water to reach patients, as well as the lack of available resources. Then, we went into the clinic, which was rather small but still had a pediatrician, dentist, nurse, and other specialties. One of the employees was teaching a salsa class to help keep the community active—and we were allowed to join! It was a fun way to immerse ourselves in the culture and meet the locals. Following the boat trip, the IES Abroad team treated our whole group to a nice lunch at a restaurant in Tigre. It was a delicious meal, and the shopping afterward was awesome too! The last part of our day consisted of visiting a public hospital in San Isidro. We got to learn more about how they receive their funding and received a tour of their ICU unit. Then, we headed back to the hotel on the bus.
Throughout our visits, we have learned a lot about the relationships within the healthcare system. One we focused on today was the relationship between hospitals and primary care within the public system. The public system is open to all, and anyone can receive emergency treatment at these facilities. Although this sounds great, the public system faces many problems with funding. The hospitals need more money to pay their workers, purchase better equipment, and ensure there are enough beds. The public system is funded by the federal government, which makes it difficult to receive extra funding to meet these needs. On the flip side, we have found that primary care can lower the number of people needing care in hospitals or other facilities, which can reduce hospital visits overall. This, in turn, can lower the number of sick people in total. Primary care is preventative care that happens before someone is even ill. This includes educating communities on healthy habits, how to self-examine, and how to take better care of themselves. Governmental funding should prioritize primary care because then less money would be needed for hospital-based care. However, this is not appealing to hospitals themselves, and it’s difficult to invest in preventative care when there are already people in need of treatment today. This is the ongoing debate that is hard to solve when it comes to healthcare funding—and when politics get involved, there is constant discussion about where the public health system’s funding should go.
See you tomorrow!!
