Today we went on the boat ride through Tigre! During our ride we visited a public clinic similar to the one we saw yesterday. The one difference between the public clinics is that Tigre serves a much larger community primarily through transportation of water. The area of Tigre relies heavily on the river to take children to school, go to work, and fishing. Similar to a bus in Pittsburgh, they had boat busses that could be used with a membership card. At the clinic they also provided emergency transportation to critical residents of Tigre. We were able to tour the boat ambulance which carried a bunch of supplies needed. The boats from the clinic are also able to provide primary care such as vaccines to the children. This clinic was much more financially stable than the one from yesterday because they are funded by mostly the government and were able to fund salaries for more staff and doctors.
Continuing our day we went to a public hospital and were able to create comparisons to the private Austral Hospital. The public hospital explained how extremely outdated their hospital was. In many cases beds used were from 10 years ago, no electronic record systems are in place yet and standards of practice were educationally behind. Another challenge was the nurses intense work life balance. They work 8 hours a day with only 1 day off a week; compared to Austral which were able to work only 5 days a week for 8 hours. While the hospital may be outdated in many aspects they have put large funding recently into upgrading the hospital. When we toured the ICU we were able to see some of the upgrades with the equipment, they had placed brand new respiratory systems.
An important topic we discussed today was how health department weigh funding into different organizations. While discussing this at the public hospital we were explained that the hospital also provides primary care clinics around their municipal to lower the cost of care by up-keeping the health of residents and preventing chronic illnesses. These primary health clinics also assure that the hospitals are not overrun by patients who do not need intensive care. Filling emergencies rooms with simple colds leaves less space for real emergencies and the resources available for chronic illnesses. Overall directing funding to these public clinics is most effective. By providing low-cost primary care to patients, it decreases the risk of patients needing high expense care.
To conclude, I had such a great day today and cannot wait for tomorrow’s tango lessons! I am so thankful I am able to be on this trip and share my experiences. Today provided me with a great perspective of how important healthcare is for a community.
