Today we took a visit to another public hospital. This university hospital is located in the municipality Matanza. We first had an informative meeting with the director of the hospital. He spoke about the many challenges with having a hospital in an impoverished area with a high population and owned by the province. 

 As we took a tour through the hospital, the difference between the private and public hospitals was very prevalent. The hospital building itself was previously built quickly for military assistance, leaving the director to deal with severe structural issues that have not been remedied yet. I was surprised to see cracked and open windows, free/hanging electrical wires, exposed plumbing, and free roaming cats in the hospital. 

   This was without a doubt one of the most eye opening hospitals we’ve visited. If you would like a better idea of what this municipality is like, translate La Matanza into English. This hospital showed the large gap between different municipalities and public vs privately owned hospitals. A public hospital like this one receives its funding from the province rather than the province and municipalities like San Isidro. This hospital does not have much control over the funding it receives so they have to manage to provide the best care they can with very little funding. The economical and environmental state of the municipality itself makes it even more challenging for the hospital to provide care to such a large population with a high demand of service and care needs. 

 After the tour at the hospital we bussed to the University to meet with nursing students and see their nursing facility. We watched students perform their clinical simulations and learned how the assessments are performed and how they use the simulations to educate the students in the best way. Their simulations seemed very similar to the ones Pitt has in the Nursing School and it was very interesting to watch the students work in the lab.