Public Health Care

A Hospital is no place to be sick.
Samuel Goldwyn (1882 - 1974)

So my dumb face didn't buy malaria pills or get vaccinated for yellow fever in the United States. Yay for trying out Argentine Health Care/ NOT Yay for trying out Argentine Health Care.

Yellow fever was easy to obtain. There is a building (a shack more or less) that says "Ministerio del Salud del Gobierno" near one of the universities. Inside there was nothing except a line waiting for yellow fever vaccines. That was it. I showed my passport and had Sarah talk to me and ba da bing ba da bum it was done. Vaccinated. And yes- I saw her take out a new needle.

Malaria Pills. In the US one would need a prescription. Like a true pelotuda I assumed the same applied here. I got up at 6 am to recieve a "turno" to then wait at the public hospital to see someone. I waited and waited and waited for 5 hours. FIVE. I was the second to last person to be called. When I got inside the doctor told me it was his birthday, asked me to be his novia, and promptly informed me that he couldn't write me the prescription. I went home and cried.

Then I talked to Graham about how it works in Guatemala. He thought that maybe I'd be able to simply obtain the pills at the pharmacy sans prescription and told me the name of the drug. He was right. The cost was only 40 pesos (10 US dollars) which is 1/7 of what everyone spent in the US.



So what have we learned:
- The reason the wait was so long was because there were a lot of people from Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru who all come to Argentina to use the free public healthcare. I wonder how this will play out in the US
_ I wonder about malpractice suits here. One needs a specialist for a vaccination that is clearly warranted but the generalist doctor was not able to prescribe me one. In the US we LOVE to sue. I also wonder how this will work out.
_Argentina provides free and easy yellow fever vaccinations... almost no questions asked. Are there any vaccines we should provide for free in the US. And while this was a nice service and I'm grateful on a personal level, is it the best use of funding?
-I wonder hope appointments will be organized in public health care in the US. I imagine a similar turno system will have to exist because it wouldn't make sense to triage non-emergency services.

Pictures courtesy of Sarah Janisch will be added soon... stay tuned kids