Access to specialized care and clinical follow-up in a group of patients with rheumatoid arthritis from the Wichí community in Salta: another look at the practice of our profession
Abstract
The objective of this letter is to highlight the reality to which the Rheumatology specialist may be exposed in a different context. The Latin American Group for Studies of Rheumatic Diseases in Native Peoples (GLADERPO) has worked, since its formation in 2009, in different communities in Latin America. In Argentina, in the Qom communities of the cities of Rosario (Santa Fe) and Presidencia Roque Sáenz Peña (Chaco), and in the Wichí community of the town “Misión Chaqueña, El Algarrobal” (Salta). The fundamental objectives of this project are, on the one hand, to estimate the prevalence of rheumatic diseases and, on the other, to describe the perception and barriers in accessing the health system. A central point of this has been the intervention in the community through the monitoring of patients detected with rheumatic diseases, mainly rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and the design and implementation of different educational strategies, with the intention of making visible the difficulty in access to the health system of these communities, trying to reduce the existing gap.References
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