Today we looked at the difference between primary/preventive care and a hospital environment. We visited Tigre Municipo which is a small wooden public health center near the Rio Capitán. There was 1 dentist room, 1 consultant room, vaccination room, and a tiny outdoor gym; the doctor and nurse are there 24 hours a day. Their ambulance is a boat that goes 40 km/hr. There are three sections to the neighborhood with only one ambulance and two health care centers; these neighborhoods aren’t close either and are about an hour apart by boat. There is also a big mobile medical boat that runs Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. The doctor goes to check on people that aren’t able to dock and take the boat to the health center. The boat has a dentist room and three consultant rooms. They see about 270 patients a month which is more than the building.
After lunch we went to Hospital de San Isidro. This public hospital is part of the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires which has a very dense population- 4.8 million inhabitants.Its belongs to the sanitary region and has 3 hospitals. They receive about 500 surgeries a month. The hospital invests in primary care because their goal is to get people from the hospitals to a primary health center. This is cheaper than keeping patients in the ICU or other places in the hospital. They struggle with accessibility and equipment. Primary was very optimal for them but the hospital needed an upgrade that required a lot of money. They said that even though they put a lot of money into the hospital, they are still able to provide money for primary care. The Tigre Municipio mentioned they get free medicine to reduce the burden of getting hospital medicine. At this hospital there’s no insurance coverage so taxes pay. Provinces also give money to them because they have to distribute money. Furthermore, we were able to go into the ICU and learn about their nurses. They have 6 nurses per shift and each shift is 8 hours 6 days a week. There’s only 300 nurses in the whole hospital.The ICU is transitioning from paper records to electronic. On the other hand, the intermediate ICU only has paper records. Overall, health departments need to strategically work together to balance finances for the hospital and primary care centers.
