Our today was spent mostly in the Palermo/Recoleta neighborhoods in the northern part of the city. We first looked at the private hospital Sanitorium Mater Dei, which was one of the nicest clinics or hospitals that we’ve seen so far. We then headed over to a public one called Hospital Fernandez which looked a lot like the San Isidro hospital we visited but with more up-to-date technology. Finally, we went to Clinica Bazterrica, which was essentially just another private hospital that was similar to Mater Dei.

The biggest difference between the two private hospitals and the public one that I noticed was the way they oriented their care for their patients. The private hospitals had a bigger focus on making the environment very clean and very posh for the patients and so they looked more like the hospitals we are used to seeing in the U.S., while the public hospital was mostly focused on just delivering quality care with the resources they have. Another difference that was mentioned between the private and public hospitals was that neither of the private hospitals offered transplant surgeries in the operating rooms. That was something that the public system did offer and it was a bit surprising to see that difference. Overall, there wasn’t major differences between the quality of care between the two sectors, but how it was packaged and how it looked between the sector was vastly different, referring to the hospital’s appearance, how patients make appointments and get treated, etc.