Today we were given the opportunity to get a look behind the scenes of a large and vital public hospital which included sitting down with doctors and administrators to discuss the inner workings of the hospital, observing future nurses in action, and then unpacking it all with our classmates through a discussion roundtable. However, we first began our day with a Tango lesson. The instructors were very kind and understanding about the fact that some of us were highly uncoordinated. The way they were able to dance was not only incredibly impressive to watch, but then to be taught, or at least our instructors attempted to teach us.
After lunch, we took the bus to a public hospital called Hospital de Agudos Paroissien. We began by meeting with the hospital’s administration, doctors, and nurses to learn about the hospital. This hospital serves 2 million people of the municipality surrounding it, but it has only 303 beds between 2 floors with a mere 36 ICU beds. Something else we learned was that 9 out of 10 births result in complications due to the limited resources in the hospital. The administration explained to us that this hospital faces the most trauma cases and the municipality surrounding it is extremely dangerous as there are high levels of poverty. This caused us to start thinking about the principles of federalism and why this public hospital looked much different than San Isidro’s public hospital we visited a few days ago.
Federalism is the distribution of power in a country between the federal government and the lower levels of governments. In Argentina, the power is distributed from the national government to the provincial governments and to the municipal governments. The healthcare system is affected by this distribution of power because the national government does not run the hospitals, the provincial governments run/own/operate them. In this principle lies the reason the Paroissien Hospital was in a poorer condition than the San Isidro Hospital. The Paroissien Hospital is in a province with a high poverty rate, so the hospital has less resources and money to keep it in good condition. The San Isidro Hospital is in a wealthier province which allows it to have more resources and money than the hospital from today.
Following our meeting and tour of the hospital, we traveled to the public university that is connected to the hospital through educational efforts. At the Universidad Nacional de La Matanza we got a tour of the Nursing school program and were able to watch some nursing students take one of their clinical simulation practice exams. We then had a student-led discussion to recap what we had learned about throughout the day. During this discussion, my group presented to the rest of the class the positive aspects and challenges we recognized at the hospital. The positive aspects we mentioned were the ability to provide free medications for patients, the mental health unit they have, and the integration of primary care into the hospital. The challenges we recognized during our tour included the lack of resources, the limited amounts of beds, the funding issues, and the long wait times to see a doctor.
Overall, today was a very packed schedule, yet it was one of the most interesting days thus far, in my opinion. I really enjoyed touring the hospital and learning about the differences between the Universities nursing program and ours!
Pro Tip: Do NOT fall asleep on the bus as your classmates will likely take a picture of you in your most vulnerable state! See you guys tomorrow for day 6!!
