Voices ResourcesA website for the worldwide community around the journal Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy

In Argentinean Music Therapy there is a long tradition of work in the field of mental health, in the treatment of several kinds of disabilities, in prevention and in community music therapy. But there is scarce development in Music Therapy in medicine. This story is about an experience in this field, in the General Hospital Bernardino Rivadavia, in the city of Buenos Aires.

Public Health in Buenos Aires

The city of Buenos Aires has 33 public hospitals, whose main feature is the offer of free of charge attention. The people that use to attend public hospitals usually lack private health insurance or social systems of health, either because they are unemployed or working without being registered legally in the labor market. Hospitals also provide attention to people with health coverage for social work, which workers pay by direct deductions from their wages. This means that the hospital population is mostly of low or lower middle class, both living in the city and the its periphery, and also consists of immigrants from neighboring countries who have been unable to regularize their residence.

Buenos Aires’ public health system has been characterized, since I can remember, by having excellent professionals but, unfortunately, very low budget. In order to fully understand the scenario, hospitals often lack basic supplies, like common therapeutic medicines, and even gauzes and alcohol. There are constant demands and professional’s complaints to increase the health budget, the personnel’s wages, to improve the cleaning conditions, to improve the buildings conditions, among a lot of others claims.

Nevertheless, in the middle of this sad panorama, an excellent system of hospital residences and internships goes on. Residencies are a rented system of formation and postgraduate specialization for medical doctors and other health professionals like psychologists, which depend from the government of the city. People have to go through a rigorous entrance examination to access a vacancy. Internships are a system of postgraduate training pro bono, sixteen hours a week for four years for various health professions, including Music Therapy. But not all hospitals have this kind of Music Therapy internships.

The Music Therapy Experience

Rivadavia’s Hospital is one of the general hospitals of the city. It has, among other things, a very important maternity service. For this reason, a Music Therapy workshop for pregnant women dependent of the mental health service started nine years ago, under my supervision. For four years, it was carried out by music therapist dyads. Gradually, the work that was first seen by doctors, obstetricians and nurses as something strange became accepted. One of the bases for this to happen was the changes in the pregnant women that attend the workshop, who showed a decrease in anxiety and fears of childbirth and maternity. On the other hand, the professional attitude of music therapists was fundamental, because they not only carried out an excellent task but got the other hospital’s professionals to know and respect their work.

One of the pleasant consequences is that at the doctors’ request music therapists began giving music therapy case studies and conferences, and music therapy classes were included in the training program of midwives.

Later on the Music therapy program included the attention of mothers in neonatology, and four years later the Music Therapy Internship of Rivadavia’s Hospital was created, under the Teaching and Research Department. It was the first Music Therapy Internship of the city of Buenos Aires specialized in Medicine. I am not going to detail the enormous amount of work carried out by music therapists participated in these experience for the last five years. It is a huge pride for me, as a member of this team in my role of supervisor. Several researches have been carried out, and some of them were presented at the XII World Congress of Music Therapy in Buenos Aires. There have been Music Therapy Conferences in the hospital auditorium, and every year we participate in the Hospital’s General Conference. Nowadays we are a team of fourteen music therapists. Currently during the four years of the internship, music therapists fulfill in successive rotations in Obstetrics (both ambulatory and hospitalized for pregnancy-risk pregnancies), Neonatology, Rheumatology, Neurosurgery psycho prophylaxis, Oncology, Pediatrics, Clinical Inpatient Men's and Women's Hospital Inpatient. We hope that we will soon begin to work also in outpatient clinic, and probably will open new services.

Almost nine years of work, seeing Music Therapy grow in a public hospital, with an excellent team. And we finished the year with the best news than we could receive. The authorities decided to create a rented position of Music Therapy, to be completed in the first semester of 2010. This means that, thanks to the work of music therapists during these years and to the support of the Teaching and Research Department, there will be a full-time rented music therapist. Without a doubt, a great step to strengthen the insertion of our discipline within the health system. And also a big step to open new jobs for other music therapists in this hospital and other institutions. Something good to celebrate.

How to cite this page

Schapira, Diego (2010). Music Therapy Experience in a Public Hospital. Voices Resources. Retrieved January 15, 2015, from http://testvoices.uib.no/community/?q=fortnightly-columns/2010-music-therapy-experience-public-hospital