It is time to transform the health system, says Zoé Robledo in front of legislators

Victor Ballinas and Enrique Mendez

Newspaper La Jornada
Tuesday, April 26, 2022, p. eleven

The director of the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), Zoé Robledo, considered that the country is very close to leaving behind the covid-19 pandemic and that, after the effort of this month’s vaccination program, the transformation of the health system must be carried out.

Yesterday, the official attended the ceremonies for the Health Week convened by the two houses of Congress. In the Senate, Zoé Robledo stated that no government has done as much for social security in recent 50 years as that of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

While in San Lázaro, he stressed that the country’s medical efforts were focused on dealing with the pandemic and that, even when it ends, it must continue. a very good epidemiological surveillance to know where there may be more infections, how to avoid them, attend to hospitalization when necessary, as well as vaccination, which has been extraordinary.

He also trusted that by the end of 2024 the goal is for almost all states to have accepted the federalization of medical services, that is, that they can join the IMSS-Wellness mechanism through the operation of their state and medical care coordination.

In the Chamber of Deputies, Zoé Robledo denounced that in the past six-year terms there had been a silent privatization of medical care, while before the senators, officials, businessmen and union leaders, gathered in the old house of Xicoténcatl, he stated: We come from decades of dismantling social security. It is enough to remember the 1997 pension reform, which not only increased the contribution weeks from 500 to 1,250, but also privatized the pension. Now, with the current government, the country has a better pension system, an increase in the minimum wage, subcontracting reform and strengthening of the rights of domestic workers.

He explained that in this government a pension reform was achieved with which more than 90 thousand workers benefited, since with the previous scheme they would not have been able to retire or receive a pension and that without those actions they would be in a very different situation.

Likewise, he explained that the subcontracting reform has allowed almost 3 million workers to migrate to a real company, which implies an increase in their salary, that they have more certainty in hiring and labor rights. This change, she argued, has also had a greater impact in terms of female employment, in addition to the fact that much of the increase is focused on working women.

In turn, the president of the Retirement Savings Commission (Consar), Iván Pliego Moreno, reported that, from May 2021 to February 2022, the Retirement Savings System delivered 40 billion pesos, 0.78 per percent of the total assets of the system, to people who lost their jobs or saw their income reduced as a result of the covid-19 pandemic.

Zoé Robledo explained that the 1997 pension model very soon it saw its limits, and although one of the motivations of the time was to have healthy finances, now the interest of the workers is the center of the concerns of this administration.