Today we went to the University of La Mantanza, Paroissien Hospital, and the UNLaM facility. Today we focused more on the funding from municipalities and provinces and how it affects neighborhood to neighborhood. La Mantanza has 3 million people in its area, which is an insane amount of people that need to be taken care of. The hospital we went to was very different and unique. It reminded me of a prison kind of place and had very dark lights and a lot of metal because of the flooding that occurred there previously. We learned about how the hospital is 100% funded by the province of Buenos Aires, and still did not get a lot of funding, and has very strict rules for them to follow. This area, which has 3 million people to take care of and is not getting enough funding for the needs of the people, is very harmful and unfair.
Compared to San Isidro, which is 60% funded by municipal and 40% provincial, and it serves like 300,000 people, it had super beneficent, modern rooms, and looked way more hospital-like. You can really see the money inequality between neighborhoods when you have a higher population in a more impoverished area. They do what they have to do for what they get, but it seems to be completely unfair in terms of who gets funding and where that funding goes. There is free healthcare, but with some areas looking very poor and insanitary, it might not be worth it.
They had mentioned that many nurses and faculty left because the private sector and public sector in Buenos Aires city paid more. The public hospitals used to make more, but government and economic changes have made that more difficult, which now results in lower salaries. The nurses work very hard at these places because there are so many people who need help and care, and they don’t have a more “modern” way of care and equipment.
We then went to the university and had a lecture from a nursing professor who had mentioned how broken the system is, and it really showed me today how different each neighborhood handles healthcare and how different people are taken care of based on where they live.
