Abstract
This article examines the critical role played by social identity in the construction of hospitals in the Argentine health care sector during the 1940s and 1950s by uncovering the way in which the “jungle” of hospitals withstood attempts by the state to apply some sense of order, purpose, and centralized organization. The first section examines how physicians envisioned the “modern” hospital they hoped to construct. The second section reveals the important antecedents of nationalized hospitalization schemes found in the collaboration between physicians’ unions and the state. In the third section, an analysis of political speeches illuminates how Juan and Evita Perón packaged new hospitals as gifts to the people from their leader. The fourth section outlines specific plans to increase the number of hospital beds. The final section surveys examples of hospital construction to demonstrate how sub-national identities were instrumental to fragmenting both Argentine society and its hospital infrastructure.
Highlights
On February 24, 1951, the anniversary of his election victory five years before, Argentine President Juan Perón gave a speech inaugurating the newly-completed Policlínico “Presidente Perón” in suburban Buenos Aires in which he summarized the Peronist vision for hospitals and their construction, noting the deplorable state of hospitals and health care that had existed before: The medical institutions for the less favored classes should not be called hospitals but “inhospitables” because the primary sentiments are not of hospitality but of the absolute inhospitality that befalls the desperate poor in their fight for health and subsistence
In the end the Ministerio de Salud Pública (MSP) undertook no construction projects during the execution of the Second Five-Year Plan (SFYP), discussions during the planning stage included the consideration of new hospitals and unidades sanitarias
We don’t want medical care in public hospitals for our workers; we want them to have their own hospitals because seeking shelter in a charity hospital isn’t the same as being treated in your own home. We want this to be a railway workers’ hospital directed and managed by railway workers and at the service of railway workers (1954). Through his insistence on casting hospitals as homes for specific social groups within Argentine society, Perón and Peronism were clearly complicit in the continued strength and autonomy of social groups with clear subnational identities within the Argentine health care infrastructure
Summary
On February 24, 1951, the anniversary of his election victory five years before, Argentine President Juan Perón gave a speech inaugurating the newly-completed Policlínico “Presidente Perón” in suburban Buenos Aires in which he summarized the Peronist vision for hospitals and their construction, noting the deplorable state of hospitals and health care that had existed before: The medical institutions for the less favored classes should not be called hospitals but “inhospitables” because the primary sentiments are not of hospitality but of the absolute inhospitality that befalls the desperate poor in their fight for health and subsistence. Evita’s comments are significant in that they highlight two components of the overall Peronist scheme for hospital construction: existing hospitals suffered from decades of neglect and, the working class needed new medical facilities. The Peronist public discourse on hospitals and public health connected improvements in health care to the needs of the people Both Perón and Evita emphasized their personal connections to los descamisados or to whichever population they happened to address at the time. The voluntary and obligatory mututalidades have a function uniquely restricted to their members, but we can consider them as public services as well All of this progress in collective medical care that completely or partially covers the risk of disease for many millions of persons forms a true jungle of institutions without any real connections between them. Their technical value, in general, is frequently beneath their objectives and the patient very rarely finds the shortest path to recovery (Matera, 1949-50, pp.323-324)
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