We took on the tango bright and early this morning learning both the traditional and acrobatic tango. It is such a beautiful style of dance where there is a lead and a follower who needs to work cohesively to make the dance flow. Afterwards we grabbed some lunch and headed over to take a tour of the Paroissien Hospital. This public hospital consists of two levels: upper level for outpatients and lower level for hospitalizations. With open access it has 303 beds, 200 medical residents and 460 attending physicians. There tends to be high complexity cases, and anything related to trauma is one of the biggest challenges for the hospital. They have 2 million inhabitants that depend on this hospital and around 20% of the patients there have social security while the other 80% don’t necessarily have a plan. Even though the hospital supports health as a human right they said they can’t promise medications or immediate care all the time due to a shortage in supplies and bed availability. To wrap up our day we visited the National University of La Matanza to view a clinical simulation and have a discussion session with the nursing students. The simulation was interesting to see as we saw how the simulation is being controlled and how the nursing students were able to handle the situation. We then had a group discussion where we split up and discussed our assigned questions. Me and my group discussed what strengths and weaknesses we perceive in Argentina’s healthcare system compared to that of the United States.
Hearing from professionals and doctors at the public hospitals it is evident that they tend to have scarce resources and tend to run low on supplies. In Argentina, healthcare is largely decentralized meaning each province is responsible for the organization of healthcare services which ties into federalism where power is divided between a central authority and smaller political units, such as provinces or states. This system can often result in a variability of resources and quality of care according to the healthcare professionals. Overall, the hospitals and doctors simply don’t have the proper financing from the provinces which can put strain on their quality of service.
Fact of the day: The tango was born in the neighborhoods of Buenos Aires in the late 1800s, this passionate dance has grown into a symbol of Argentine culture and is now celebrated worldwide.
