TİKA Supports the Basic Health Infrastructure of Argentina

Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA) built a medical imaging room in the city of Río Grande, which is located in Patagonia, Argentina, and has a population of nearly 100,000.

Since Río Grande, an industrial city in the Province of Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and South Atlantic Islands, located in the southernmost part of Argentina, has experienced a rapid population growth, its infrastructure is insufficient to meet the needs of the population.

Río Grande Regional Hospital, which previously offered medical imaging services to residents without social security, had to allocate all its resources to the treatment of patients with COVID-19 and was unable to serve other residents of the city.

TİKA built an imaging room in cooperation with the Municipality of Río Grande in order to solve this problem.

The opening ceremony held for the room was attended by Şefik Vural Altay, Türkiye’s Ambassador to Buenos Aires; Martin Perez, Mayor of Río Grande; and residents of Río Grande.

In his speech at the opening ceremony, Martin Perez, Mayor of Río Grande, thanked the Republic of Türkiye and TİKA, and said, “Today, we are putting this facility into service thanks to the support of the Government of the Republic of Türkiye and TİKA. The facility was absolutely necessary, considering the demand for health services in Río Grande. It will improve the quality of healthcare provided to our residents, reduce the demand for secondary care and imaging services, and strengthen the traumatology services that we currently provide.”

Eugenia Coccaro, Secretary of Health of the Municipality, said, “The support provided by TİKA enables us to become the first state-of-the-art primary healthcare center, thereby optimizing our response to the demands of the community and improving the quality of the healthcare offered to neighbors.”

In his speech, Şefik Vural Altay, Türkiye’s Ambassador to Buenos Aires, said, “We follow our country’s policy in the fields of entrepreneurial and humanitarian diplomacy. In this context, we continue to implement projects in the fields of education, health, and infrastructure through TİKA in Argentina, one of the major countries in the region, despite the unfavorable conditions created by the pandemic.”