Today was our busiest day so far! We started the day early with a boat ride on the river to the Tigre, Buenos Aires, where we visited a public health facility, where we met an ambulance boat captain, and where we learned about the challenges it faces. One is understaffing. The population of Tigre Delta is a little over 10,000, but in the summer it can increase by almost three times. This is a huge challenge as there is only one ambulance to cover the whole population. Although there had been previously been preventative measures in place such as a health catamaran which would travel and dock in different places before moving every few days, allowing people to receive check ups, it is now broken and due to lack of funding, has not yet been fixed. The weather conditions can also play a big role in whether or not care can be administered and received, as when it’s very foggy out, it’s not safe for the ambulance to go on the river, and it’s not safe for patients to come to receive care. After our tour, we participated in some salsa dancing outside, which was led by a clinical nutritionist. We did three dances and it was really fun! We even got to interact with some locals. We then stopped for an amazing lunch and headed on our way to our next stop.

On our next visit, we went to San Isidro, a hospital in the public sector. We attended a lecture about the public health system and some of the challenges it faces. In the public hospitals, people can receive free care as the hospital is paid for by local taxes and receives its funding from the federal government, while in the private hospitals, people pay for their care through insurance. This can be challenging for the public hospitals as they do not receive enough government funding. Although people have private health insurance, they can still go to public hospitals to receive care this can cut into the public sectors funding as they will get charged for the care rather than the private insurance companies cutting into the public hospitals funding, but leading to difficulty in fully knowing how much funding they have as they don’t receive confirmation as to who was charged. As a result of these funding inequalities, public hospitals tend to have overcrowding, older or more outdated equipment, and insufficient care. 

Something that could help these issues is primary care. Primary care would allow people to become more educated about their health, meaning that it could be used as a preventative measure for illness, leading to less overcrowding in public hospitals. However, although this would be a good measure, it is difficult for public hospitals to implement as they are not adjusted to it with their current format and would need to take time to not just integrate into their system, but also for it to have enough of an impact on their region for fewer patients. As is, public hospitals have a lack of funding and still need to take care of their current patients, so without more support from the federal government and more funding to implement primary care and take care of their current patients, changes can’t be made. Despite learning about these challenges, it was amazing to see the sense of community in the hospitals. Many nurses at San Isidro have worked there for forty to fifty years, and the chief ambulatory captain has been for many years. In touring and meeting them, we could see the care they put into their work, and it was inspiring for me as a nursing student. Can’t wait for tomorrow!