Today started off with a lecture from Dr. Daniel Ferrante, the current deputy minister of health of the city of Buenos Aires (CABA). For this lecture we visited the headquarters of the ministry of health, and learned about how CABA runs in its own providence. CABA made a lot of effort getting people out of the public city hospitals and into primary care to reduce overcrowding and lower expenses. It surprised me how many empty and unused beds are in the union hospitals, and how closing them is so difficult. It was emphasized that hospitals cannot be closed in CABA because they are run by the obras sociales, and therefore can lead to political issues. Shortly after, we attended another lecture by Dr. Gabriel Leverstein, the current director of the Obra Social de Comercio, at the University of Austral location in Buenos Aires. This lecture addressed the national social security system and its distortions, focusing on the obras sociales and economic state of the health system. We learned about HMO’s (Health Maintenance Organization), as well as technology and consumer inflation rates in healthcare. I enjoyed the third lecture by Dr. Luis Gimenez, the past deputy National Minister of Health, the most, as it related to my group presentation and was very educational about our topic. This lecture focused on the national health ministry, and touched on topics such as the ministry’s role, PAMI (Programa de Atención Médica Integral), systemic challenges, and the financing model. He also touched on the two goals of implementing universal health coverage and reforming drug and medical device policies.
The last part of our day consisted of a guided tour at the Museo Etnográfico, a museum focusing on the indigenous people throughout South American countries, including Argentina, Chile, and Colombia. Their main objective was to disprove the common misconception that Argentina does not have indigenous history. It was very interesting to see all of the artifacts, textiles and paintings from various countries around the world, and compare their cultural history.
PMO stands for Programa Médico Obligatorio (Mandatory Medical Program), and is the law that the Argentine government gives to provide each person with a minimum of health services and treatments, although there is no maximum limit on how many extra benefits and services insurance plans can offer. The smaller obras sociales can only offer the minimum coverage or sometimes less, which is capped based on the income of their customers. It is therefore hard for them to keep up with the larger obras sociales that attract and are funded by wealthier people, as they are able to offer extra benefits or more advanced treatments.
