Alonso Urrutia
Sent
La Jornada Newspaper
Thursday, December 11, 2025, p. 4
Puebla, Pue., During the 116th ordinary assembly of the IMSS, its director, Zoé Robledo, stated that between 2018 and 2030, in order to overcome the infrastructure gap that was inherited, the institute will incorporate 47 new hospitals and expand to 45 thousand beds.
This means that in 12 years the capacity for patient care will grow by 11,000 beds, which is equivalent to almost triple what was achieved in 36 years of neoliberalism, when there were 4,300 beds in the entire period.
In contrast to Robledo’s optimism, the representative of the labor sector, José Luis Carazo, described a more complex environment for the institute: “the financial pressure derived from IMSS-Bienestar-Coplamar worries us, because like the deeply inclusive programs that the three powers have entrusted to the IMSS, none is accompanied by a source of financing, deepening its short and medium-term economic risks. It does not affect the present, but it compromises the future.”
Although he highlighted that in this administration the salary policy has been consolidated and the 40-hour work week was promoted, he warned that “medical spending for chronic diseases absorbs close to 20 percent of IMSS income and the historical lag in infrastructure is a fundamental challenge. Hospitals are being built and units are modernized, but the magnitude of the challenge reminds us that the pace of Mexico demands more.”
Before President Claudia Sheinbaum, he asserted that every day we hear episodes of shortages, hospitals operating above their capacity, saturated operating rooms, ambulances looking for spaces, painful waiting times, a shortage of specialists and equipment that require timely maintenance, and the worrying financial and actuarial risks.
Robledo described another reality of the IMSS: “its staff grew almost 20 percent between 2018 and 2025, going from 441 thousand to 523 thousand workers, and 91 percent of the new workforce is in medical care. All of this has been achieved due to the higher income of the IMSS from better salaries that increase contributions.”
In March 2019, he explained, 4,637 doctors entered to study a specialty at the IMSS and 3,900 graduated, but the institute only hired half of them. “What did we do? More scholarships for residencies, more training venues and more courses in the specialties that we needed, not those demanded by the private market. This year has been historic: in March 9,813 entered to study, 7,293 specialists graduated and we hired 85 percent.
The business representative and leader of Conamin, Alejandro Malagón highlighted another aspect of the improvement of the IMSS, based on Sheinbaum’s new economic policies, which has managed to better protect the industry. He cited the case of the textile sector, which had weakened and lost 130 thousand jobs to the IMSS, a situation that has been reversed. He also highlighted that as the salary increased from 2018 to date, the institute’s reserves almost doubled and new hospitals were built.
