Arturo Sanchez, Georgina Saldierna and Enrique Mendez
Newspaper La Jornada
Monday, February 21, 2022, p. 6
The equivalent of half of 512 thousand 710 patients treated in public hospitals in 2020 by covid-19 died, according to data from the Superior Audit of the Federation (ASF), whose public account report for that year indicates that the pandemic showed the fragility of the public health system, which had deficiencies in the collection and processing of data, mortality statistics, epidemiological surveillance and training of human resources, among other issues, for which, he recommended, it is essential to make corrections to the possibility of future emergencies similar to the current one.
For the ASF, although this disease was unknown and there were no vaccines to prevent it, it was possible to foresee a way to reduce the loss of life and the economic consequences, with measures to slow down the speed of spread and avoid saturation of the Systems of health.
With the evidence collected from the 11 performance audit reports, the ASF determined that it is necessary to continue addressing the sector’s weaknesses, such as the insufficiency of specific and comprehensive diagnoses of physical infrastructure, medical equipment and human resources, that allow determining the sufficiency of the available resources, the conditions in which they operate and their distribution.
The report indicates that the National Institute of Respiratory Diseases, Social Security, the Institute of Security and Social Services of State Workers (Issste) and the national health institutes, federal reference hospitals and highly specialized regional hospitals attended and, in In their case, they hospitalized 512,710 patients for covid-19 and reported 251,130 patient deaths from the disease.
The audits found inconsistencies in the records in the epidemiological surveillance systems of the Ministry of Health (Ssa). Regarding the mortality of the disease, the ASF identified a difference of 49 thousand 689 deaths between 125 thousand 807 that the Ssa reported as the accumulated as of December 31, 2020 and 175 thousand 496 that it had registered in the Disease Epidemiological Surveillance System viral respiratory.
The ASF detected that there were anomalies in the storage of anticovid vaccines, and observed differences in the registration of the number of doses that entered and left the warehouse of the National Cancer Institute, responsible for safeguarding the Pfizer vaccine. It also determined that the transportation of the AstraZeneca doses was not properly monitored.
Another irregularity was that the Correcaminos Operation, in charge of the reception, storage, transfer and distribution of biologicals, did not consider the participation of Birmex, Cancerology or the Institute of Epidemiological Diagnosis and Reference, despite the fact that they participate in these activities. .
