This morning we arrived at the Tigre river for a boat tour. We visited a primary care clinic in the rural Tigre area. The clinic was hard to get to, and we traveled by boat. The most interesting thing here was the mobile clinic which was in a boat. The boat was stocked with medicines and supplies to provide people with preventive primary care for people who cannot travel to the clinic themselves. In this way, the clinic travels to them. This access to primary care is very intimate for these communities because it allows them to avoid going to the hospital.
Then, we had an amazing lunch with the group. We went to exchange currency, where they gave us pesos in exchange for $100 USD. It’s interesting that they prefer hundred dollar bills, and that American money is in demand here. We were able to explore the area after that for some free time.
Once we arrived at the site of San Isidro Hospital, we had a lecture where they explained to us the challenges of healthcare management in Buenos Aires. They deal with challenges regarding inefficient use of resources. Since there is a very high population density, the area is divided into regions. I noticed that much of the improvements in this hospital were extremely recent, and they have just started replacing old equipment within the past 1-2 years. Until a year ago, all the records were on paper, so everything is very recently becoming organized and updated. They still face issues with very basic needs such as drainage issues and elevator problems, and they are still working to improve many areas. We were able to walk through the ICU, which was very interesting to see. It was also very different from our hospitals, where they are very cautious about who enters the ICU and keep it very sterile, so it was neat that we were able to enter and see the patients who were being treated here.
Primary care has a huge impact on health, but there exist trade offs between allocation of funds and resources between primary and tertiary care. They focus on promotion of primary care by working with the population to provide the preventative care to people and keep them out of the hospitals. This is beneficial for both the patients and the hospital in many ways. It allows people to be more healthy and educated about their health, which can prevent the need to have to go to the hospital therefore saving money. It can also prevent those who are not candidates for hospital attention from taking up the time and resources at the hospital from those who need the attention. This is a big problem at this hospital and in this situation, those who need care don’t receive it, or their care is delayed.
We wrap up the day with a dinner with the whole group. Today was very informative on the importance of primary care.