Alonso Urrutia and Emir Olivares
The newspaper La Jornada
Wednesday, August 28, 2024, p. 18
Starting this Friday, another group of Cuban medical specialists will arrive in Mexico to join the IMSS-Bienestar health system, who, together with new Mexican personnel, will add 4,083 more assigned to the hospitals of the 23 entities that were added to the federalization, reported the director of the IMSS, Zoé Robledo. He pointed out that in 2019, the health services in those states had 18,614 medical specialists and currently there are 26,272.
On the other hand, he indicated that through the program La Clínica es Nuestra, resources were channeled to the 11,400 hospitals, clinics and health centers in these states. He reported that so far 6,322 million pesos have been dispersed. There has never been such a large and, above all, efficient investment in the history of the Mexican health system.
However, when looking at the progress made in the use of resources, there is a diversity of progress: in Sinaloa, all of the resources allocated to it have already been used; in Hidalgo, 99 percent have already been used, and in Sonora, 97 percent. In contrast, in Morelos, only 51 percent have been used; in Puebla, 53 percent of their resources, and in Tlaxcala, 63 percent.
Robledo acknowledged that progress in the incorporation of specialized doctors in Oaxaca has been very slow, because if in 2019, in the 48 hospitals in that entity, there were 988 specialized doctors, currently there are 1,034. That is, only an increase of 4 percent, which, he said, It is an emblematic case, because most of these hospitals are basic community hospitals, where the call is certainly more complicated.
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He stated that of this new group of specialized doctors that will be incorporated, 237 more will be channeled to Oaxaca. Regarding the exercise of the budget of La Clínica es Nuestra for that entity, they have spent 494 million pesos, that is, an advance of 73 percent, which he attributed to the dispersion of the hospital units.
In contrast, the figures for Mexico City are radically different: if in 2019 there were 381 doctors in the hospitals run by the capital government, currently, with the federalization of health services, there are already 2,030, that is, an increase of 434 percent.
During the presidential conference, Robledo said that in these hospitals, state governments had privatized the provision of important services: cleaning, food and laundry. He stressed that recovering the administration of these areas implies fully assuming the leadership of the State in matters of health, eliminating the character of subrogation.
Robledo stressed that cleaning services in an operating room or where sophisticated medical equipment is found is complicated, because they can be a source of infection, so the IMSS will resume these tasks with its own personnel.
This is the case with food, since the diet for patients is part of their treatment, which is why these foods cannot be purchased from a company. IMSS nutritionists will be asked to take charge of this.
Finally, he said that the laundry does not only include the doctors’ uniforms, but also the sheets for the patients, which is delicate, because it can also be a source of infection.
