Encountering a Century-Old Hospital The selection of each of the five locations for participant observation and photography of Salvadorean nurses reflected the assistance and collaboration of personnel at the Nurses’ Unit of the Ministry of Health. The specific Ministry hospitals and clinics we chose to focus on reflected criteria that we agreed were important. In the case of Hospital Nacional Dr. José Antonio Saldaña, (i) it was part of the Metropolitan Area of San Salvador and therefore minimized our travel time; (ii) its location in Los Planes de Rendero enabled us to observe two distinct types of clinical settings in the same micronetwork of the Health Ministry (the other one being a Community Health Team); (iii) being a second level institution, it enhanced the representativeness of the hospital focus of the study, since later on we would be looking at a first level hospital (see chapter X). The Ministry facilitated our authorization to observe and photograph here and in the other institutions that we would focus on for this phase of my research project. Hospital Nacional Saldaña has an intriguing history. Founded in 1909, it was built on the grounds of an 11.5 hectare coffee estate purchased by a governmental entity called the Sanitorio Nacional de Tuberculosis.
The funding of the buildings that would house the treatment wards came partly from private donations, and partly from a 1-colón tax raised on the sale of every bottle of aguardiente. The hospital has undergone several transformations in its chief purpose and the type of services it has offered. In 1972 it expanded from the treatment and isolation of TB-sufferers to treat a broader array of respiratory ailments, and was renamed Hospital de Neumología. In 1995 its services expanded again to encompass general medicine. The following year it was renamed to reflect this change and to honour a Salvadorean doctor renowned for his dedication to respiratory medicine; hence it now bears the name Hospital Nacional Dr. José Antonio Saldaña, Neumología y Medicina Familiar. According to the Ministry of Health, the hospital attends an average of 20,000 patients per month1.
1.http://hospitalneumologico.site90.net/ historia.htm
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