Snapshot

APN Role Exists in Country Today:
No

Contact:
Minsterio de Salud y Ambiente de Argentina (Ministry of Health in Argentina)

Role

There is no current Advanced Practice Nursing (APN) role in Argentina today.  The role of nurses in Argentina is also in its development, as nurses have only recently in 2008 established a national licensing registry for nurses (Ministerio de Salud, n.d.).  Only once the nursing role is established to consistent standards, will the nurses be in a position to incorporate an established role of advanced practice.

The health care system in Argentina also presents some difficulties in developing an Advanced Practice Nurse educational programs and system to incorporate them in employment.  As of 2008, according to the Ministerio de Salud (2008), there were 1.5 doctors per every one nurse, and only 1.55 nurses  per every thousand individuals.  Once incorporating nursing related assistive professionals, the country only has 2.21 nursing type workers per thousand habitants in Argentina (Ministerio de Salud, 2008).  While these numbers were reported by the Ministry of Health in Argentina, the World Health Organization (WHO, 2013) reports from 2004 that Argentina had a closer ratio of 4-5 doctors per nursing and midwifery professional in the country, further confirming the desperate shortage of nurses in Argentina.

Because of this significant nursing shortage in Argentina, the Ministry of Health has proposed a plan to improve working conditions and benefits for nurses to increase the number of nurses to at least one per every doctor and hopes to develop a high ration of 4.0 nurses per 1,000 individuals (Durante, 2012; Ministerio de Salud, 2008).  Meanwhile, according to Durante (2012), the country has not had nearly the success it has hoped in increasing the nursing numbers as desired.  One great struggle with this issue is the lack of nursing educators and a significant dropout rate for students in nursing schools of nearly 70% in the first cycle, a lower level of nursing in the country (Durante, 2012).

Specialties

Not applicable at this time.

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References:
Durante, S. (2012, Junio 26). Noticias de enfermería – Misiones.  Sociedad Argentina de enfermería.  Retrieved from: http://blogsdelagente.com/sae/ 

Ministerio de Salud (n.d).  Registro Unico de Profesionales de Salud.  Retrieved October 30, 2013 from: http://rups.msal.gov.ar/turnos/

Ministerio de Salud (2008).  Consejo de Salud 8 y 9 de Mayo, 2008, Recursos humanos: Residencias Enfermería [PowerPoint presentation].  Retrieved from: http://www.msal.gov.ar/images/stories/cofesa/2008/acta-02-08/anexo-4-acta-02-08.pdf

World Health Organization [WHO] (2013).  Aggregated Data: Density per 1000 by country.  Retrieved from: http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.A1444?lang=en

World Health Organization [WHO] (2013b). Disaggregated data: Nursing and midwifery personnel by country.  Retrieved from: http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.HWF1?lang=en