Andrea Becerril and Víctor Ballinas
La Jornada newspaper
Friday, November 12, 2021, p. 13
The Senate demanded that the Ministry of Health and the other social security institutions, within the scope of their attributions, guarantee the supply of medicines in all clinics and health centers in the country and that they send a timely report to that chamber. of the strategy followed to meet the demands of drugs for children with cancer.
The opinion was in place since the last session, but it motivated a wide debate about the location of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to the health authorities to solve, without excuses, the lack of drugs. In the discussion, the PRI and the PAN took the opportunity to once again criticize the Undersecretary of Health, Hugo López-Gatell, and even the blue and white they asked for his resignation.
The senator of the PT Cora Cecilia Pinedo, author of the point of agreement, expressed in the platform that the situation is delicate, since there have been important interruptions of services, and the efforts and spirit of doctors and nurses are cut short due to lack of medicines, supplies and vaccines.
Hence, he said, the call of President López Obrador, that We recognize the urgent need for health institutions to modify their operational schemes in order to respond to the challenge of building a more efficient and robust health system
.
Likewise, the morenista Margarita Valdés pointed out that the intention of all the benches is have fast and effective information on how the supply of medicines is in the country
.
The opponents, meanwhile, applauded what they considered a claim by López Obrador to Jorge Alcocer, Secretary of Health, and Juan Ferrer, director of the Institute of Health for Well-being (Insabi), for a sad reality that they had not wanted to accept
.
The PAN Martha Márquez and the PRI Silvana Beltrones and Manuel Añorve warned that the problem is that in October 2018 it was decided to centralize purchases and the course must be corrected.
The opponents demanded the resignation of López-Gatell for having denied the shortage and maintaining that there were political ends in the claims of the parents of children with cancer.
Even Germán Martínez said he hoped that what López Obrador said is not an ultimatum for Alcocer, since It would not be good for this country if the Secretary of Health were López-Gatell
.
The now member of the plural group argued that It is criticized that in the midst of a shortage of medicines, the director of the IMSS leaves as a candidate
. He concluded his intervention without correcting the error, but with more criticism to the government disorder in the purchases of medicines and where they stick to foolish and crazy procedures and where they do not know how to buy
.
Much later he rectified: the candidate to the government of Oaxaca is the director of the Issste, not that of the IMSS.
