Appointments for the Children's Dentistry Hospital Quinquela Martin means a Two Month Wait
<p><span style="line-height: 20.8px;">The Audit of the City of Buenos Aires found the wait to be “excessive.” Furthermore, it alerted of the poor management of medical waste and disrepair of the building situated in La Boca.</span></p>
According to the Auditor General of the City of Buenos Aires (AGCBA, for its acronym in Spanish), patients who need care in the Pediatric Dentistry Hospital Quinquela Martin have to wait about 53 days before given an appointment for a restorative, preventive, or an extraction procedure.
To make an appointment for the first time, the Quinquela Martin has a telephone system that is open only ones a month. The AGCBA’s report argues that this method is "inefficient" because the demand overloads the telephone lines. Moreover, this mechanism is also used for the reentry of the children who were discharged and, furthermore, appointments cannot be made at the Hospital. However, making a telephone appointment does not guarantee that the child will receive medical attention, because parents must go to the hospital three days later with the patient’s ID to confirm the appointment.
The Buenos Aires City Audit detected delays in other areas of the health center located in La Boca. For example, for a first time appointment in the orthopedic area it can take up to seven months from the time an appointment is given to the time a medical professional is seen, some take 45 days. Orthodontic attention has a waiting list of about two years to address pathologies that are not severe and, in terms of surgery, it reaches 45 to 60 days. The AGCBA argues that the particularity of dentistry is that all diseases are preventable therefore "these timeouts are excessive."
Moreover, the management of pathological waste and hazardous liquids done in the complex does not comply with the regulation. "The health of patients and hospital workers are at risk because medical waste is not handled appropriately," says the watchdog, and points out those hazardous liquids "are stored outdoors in a car that is in the downstairs courtyard." With this irregularity, the hospital does not comply with Law 154 which regulates the treatment of waste prescribing the elimination of its polluting condition. The AGCBA adds that when it wrote the report, the Quinquela Martin had not contracted any company which would be responsible for removing medical waste and on the terrace had 550 liters of radiological liquid mercury and stored in labeled drums.
The AGCBA’s report also warned of the state of the building as well as the instruments the care givers use. The four dental chairs that are in orthodontics are over 30 years old and do not recline. Another thing that caught the attention of the auditors is that the consultation rooms have no hot water and because the instruments are cleaned in the rooms, with cold water. According to the watchdog, "the poor condition of exterior plaster and paint failure, cause moisture in consultation rooms and hallways,” and adds: "The ground gets flooded because the boiler losses water.”
Although the building has four floors, the ground floor bathrooms are the only ones enabled for the public, the rest remain locked and for staff use only. The watchdog could not assess whether the operation of elevators was correct, because there was no regulatory maintenance seal. What was verified was that the Hospital does not have a contingency plan and the entrance door opens inwards, "implying a significant risk because it is the only exit in case of an emergency," concludes the AGCBA.
In December 2007, a controversy arose between the Government of the City and the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires, who was in its first days in office, because some local officials expressed their intention to prioritize the citizens of the Capital when giving appointments in the City’s public hospitals. The Audit completed a study stating that, for the weaknesses present in the Quinquela Martin, "highly complex surgeries are not performed, and patients under 14 are referred to the Eva Peron Hospital in the locality of San Martin.”