IAHPC's Traveling Fellow's Report
My experiences with Palliative Care Teams in Argentina
One year ago, in October 2005, an Argentinean doctor, Maria de los Angeles Minatel, spent one month in Extremadura , Spain to learn about our Regional Palliative Care Program. This was part of a joint collaborative program between the IAHPC and the Programa de Cuidados Paliativos del Servicio Extremeño de Salud to support the development of palliative care in Latin America . At that time, Dr. Minatel invited me to visit Argentina so that I could meet their palliative care team and also spend time teaching about the characteristics of our program. In October 2006, thanks to an IAHPC Travelling Fellowship grant, I travelled to Argentina to spend one month in order to observe how palliative care is developing in the country.
I first went to Viedma, in the south of Argentina, to participate in the IV Argentinean Medicine and Palliative Care Meeting where I was invited to discuss the Regional Palliative Care Program of Extremadura as a model for palliative care delivery. In addition, I joined with participants at the meeting to speak about the agony and communication problems we encounter in end of life care.
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Dr. Rafael Mota Vargas from Spain (center), with Argentinean colleagues at the annual meeting of the Argentinean Association for Palliative Medicine y Viedma, Rio Negro, Argentina. |
The presentations during the meeting were of a very high caliber and I was impressed by the large number of participants. These were unforgettable days for me and I met many interesting people and enjoyed Argentinean hospitality.
After the meeting, I went to Buenos Aires in order to visit palliative care units in several hospitals. I spent two weeks at “Dr. Baldomero Sommer” National Hospital with Dr. Minatel and her team. Some decades ago, this hospital had been a Leper Hospital . This is the reason it is located in a very nice place in the middle of the country where one can “breathe” peace and peacefulness. Their terminal patients receive care from a well-formed and affectionate team that is efficiently managed by Dr. Minatel. The only inconveniences are that the hospital is far from the village, there is a poor transportation system, and home palliative care is not presently available - there is a plan in progress to remedy this latter fact in the future. I also had the opportunity to present our Extremadura Program to several politicians who have significant responsibilities in the area.
During another week, I visited several institutions: Udaondo Hospital, Malta’s Hostal-Pallium Latinoamérica, Houbssay Hospital in Vicente López (with Dr. Valeria Tedeshi), San Camilo Hospice, “Liga Argentina de Lucha contra el Cáncer” in San Nicolás (with Dr. Roberto Wenk), and Instituto Lanari (with Dr. Vilma Tripodoro). I would like to emphasize that all of the staff and colleagues were extremely pleasant, and were very interested in sharing their experiences with me.
I spent the last week at Tornú Hospital, a significant resource in palliative care in Argentina . Its palliative care unit is masterfully managed by Dr. Mariella Bertolino. It is a complete and integral unit in palliative care that has organized workshops such as “tango therapy” where patients and their families, health team staff and anyone who wants to participate can enjoy “tango”, music sharing, dance, feelings, and friendship for an entire Tuesday afternoon. Another workshop they offer involves therapy using animals. Occupational therapists take trained dogs to interact with patients and families. Indeed, it is something extraordinary. Tornú hospital has numerous multidisciplinary teams that work well together and provide many training activities and conduct research studies.
My experiences in Argentina were interesting, exciting and very important to me for many reasons:
- I had the opportunity to observe the hard work of many palliative care health teams in Argentina who work with such enthusiasm and generosity despite a shortage of resources.
- It was a very rewarding personal and professional experience for me.
- The professional contacts that I made will result in important and improved understanding and collaboration that can help palliative care programs around the world.
Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to all of the people I met in Argentina, specifically Dr. Minatel, and I also wish to thank the IAHPC for facilitating these stimulating interchanges.
Rafael Mota Vargas, MD
Palliative Care Program
Servicio Extremeño de Salud
Extremadura, Spain |
