The Government of Mexico updated the number of Cuban specialists who are working in hospitals. According to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, there are 700 toilets that “provide their services for the benefit of the Mexican people”, but he did not offer details about the remote areas where they are located.
López Obrador announced this Tuesday the strengthening of his Health Plan for Well-being implemented in 2022 with doctors from the Island and the improvement of hospital infrastructure. “An investment in the Health Plan of 389,471,652 dollars for conservation, maintenance and equipment in first and second level care units (hospitals) in 14 states of the country,” said the general director of the Mexican Insurance Institute Social (IMSS), Zoé Robledo.
Since February, several groups of health workers from the Island have arrived in Mexico as part of the extension of the agreement with the Cuban Medical Services Marketer to select another group of 610 people. On May 12, 129 doctors were received by diplomatic authorities.
The General Consulate of Cuba in Mérida (Yucatán) highlighted in its social networks the removal of a gallbladder carried out on May 20 by Cuban doctors. This is the first surgery of this type in 15 years performed at the Hospital de Xpujil (Campeche). López Obrador affirms that with his health plan “it will be possible to have the necessary doctors 24 hours a day”, but the facts contradict the president’s version.
In that same hospital, meanwhile, since May 10 a patient awaits a date for gallbladder surgery. The wife, who gave the name Ana, tells 14ymedio that that day he was admitted urgently and a few hours later he was discharged. “At midnight he got sick again and they took care of him again.” In the morning he asked to be scheduled for surgery, but was told that “there were many appointments and a surgeon was on vacation.”
In addition to this, this hospital lacks a laboratory for taking samples and for performing ultrasounds. “All of this we have done on the outside,” he says. She confirmed that her husband has been cared for by Cubans, but she does not know if they are going to operate on him, “the only thing they have told me is that now there are no specialized nurses.”
Last February the arrival of the first 610 physicians on the island. The initial agreement is that these doctors would be sent to remote areasTherefore, the majority of Cuban toilets would have as their work base “the Mountain of Guerrero”, one of the most violent points in the country. Until April 26, 43 specialists had arrived in this state, whose main mission was to form “mental health caravans” in the region.
This newspaper obtained information about the lodging, the “ a la carte dinners“and the free transport that several of these specialists enjoy in central states of the country, as well as the claims for the lack of capacity and professional licenses to practice.
In Morelos, the leader of the state Health Secretariat union, Gil Magadan Salazarcounted 14ymedio that a Cuban anesthesiologist did not even “know how to put a block.” In addition, the Imss-Bienestar, a program of the Mexican Government in charge of offering health services, sent geriatricians and psychiatrists without having their professional license and not cardiologists, gastroenterologists and pediatricians, which is what they require.
There is also annoyance among the doctors and nurses of the IMSS-Bienestar because Cubans are paid more. According to Fabián Infante Valdez, leader of the National Union of Mexican Nursing (Unem), when the reform that disappeared the Institute of Health for Well-being (Insabi) was approved and passed to Imss-Bienestar, as a decentralized organization, salaries were reduced by up to 50%
According to the table, which establishes three categories for nurses by area, those classified as type “B” went from earning $620 to $290 per month. The assistants received 657 dollars and now 308. To the graduates, if they pay 931 dollars they get 372.
General practitioners received 1,224 dollars a month, now 491, and specialists from 1,487 dollars go to 647. Instead, according to the agreement with the Cuban Medical Services Marketer, Mexico disburses Havana $2,042 per month for each specialist and $1,722 for each general practitioner.
The export of medical services continues to be the main source of income for the Island, which this Monday celebrated 60 years of medical collaboration, a practice denounced by international organizations as a method of “modern slavery.” According to the Cuban ambassador in Mexico, Marcos Rodríguez Costa, there are 22,000 health collaborators on an internationalist mission in 58 countries.
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