(EFE).- The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, defended this Saturday the hiring of Cuban doctors in an act in the state of Nayaritnorthwest of the country, attended by eight Cuban specialists, the first to arrive in the country from a group of 500.
In an act at the Hospital of the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS), in the municipality of Rosamorada, Nayarit, the president remarked that although his opponents may not like it, his government will hire Cuban doctors or doctors of other nationalities to have the what the country needs.
“It is an instruction that I gave, knowing how our adversaries, the conservatives, were going to respond. I made the decision that they hire specialist doctors from abroad, and Doctors from Cuba are going to come“, López Obrador pointed out in his speech.
“Do you know why?”, he questioned the attendees and replied: “Because health has nothing to do with ideologies, health has to do with human rights, and if they have to be brought from the United States and Russia, or from Cuba, or Japan, or France, we are going to have them here,” he added.
On June 29, López Obrador announced that his government was seeking to hire doctors from Europe and Cuba to resolve the shortage of health personnel in public hospitals, despite criticism from the opposition.
The Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador has accused Mexican doctors of not wanting to work in rural or marginalized areas
“We are going to have the governments help us first, as is the case with Cuba, we are going to explore, we are seeing that, European countries, countries that have professionals and that also always help or act in solidarity,” he said that day at his conference everyday.
The president made this announcement after the goal of covering almost 14,000 vacancies with the “Recruitment for medical specialists” campaign that the government launched at the end of May was not reached.
In a first stage, Cuba will send 500 doctors to Mexico after signing a health agreement that he signed on May 8 during his visit to Havana.
Mexico has 2.4 doctors per 1,000 inhabitants, higher than the average of 2 per 1,000 inhabitants of Latin America and the Caribbean, but lower than the average of 3.5 of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) , according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi).
The Government has accused doctors of not wanting to work in rural or marginalized areas, while health personnel have responded that there are areas where they cannot work due to violence.
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