The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has responded to the controversy generated by hiring more than 500 Cuban doctors by saying that “he will not take a single step back.” During his usual morning conference, this Wednesday, the president disqualified those who criticize his decision, calling them “hypocritical, selfish and conservative.”
“Why not have the doctors? If we are doing the Cuba thing, it is because we need them,” said López Obrador, who on May 9 announced the agreement signed with Havana not only to import more than half a thousand toilets but also to acquire Cuban vaccines to apply to children.
As stated on Tuesday by the Mexican Secretary of Health, Jorge Alcocer, “Mexico has a deficit of medical specialists” and only in the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) there are 2,678 places that nobody wants for reasons of “insecurity and remoteness”.
As stated on Tuesday by the Mexican Secretary of Health, Jorge Alcocer, “Mexico has a deficit of specialist doctors” and only in the Mexican Institute of Social Security there are 2,678 places that nobody wants
The Mexican government has offered information dribbles about the agreement with the Cuban regime. So far it is known that he intends to send pediatricians to the Mountain of Guerrero, one of the 10 most insecure areas according to the Security Report of last April. Regarding salaries, it is stated that they will be similar to those of Mexican doctors, but the hiring conditions and when the first group will arrive remain unknown.
López Obrador promised that next Tuesday he will provide more precise information, such as available places and places where doctors are lacking, making the agreement public. In addition, he assures that it will be “with the commitment of immediate hiring” and “with the best salaries,” and that this includes Cuban health workers.
The president did not hesitate to publicly single out columnists critical of his administration, putting on the big screen tweets accusing him of hiring Cubans in conditions of slavery and infiltrating communist agents. “We are now going to guarantee the right to health and the gentlemen are still offended, after they made, to say the least, the mistake of leaving us without doctors, because we have a shortage of general practitioners and specialists,” he commented.
The president blamed his “adversaries” from the “neoliberal period” for having damaged the public health system, which he intends to federalize and rebuild with a plan announced last week.
“I take this opportunity to say that in this controversy of doctors, first, health should not have borders, it is a human right. Second, we have the commitment, and we are going to fulfill it, to guarantee the right to health”
“I take this opportunity to say that in this controversy of doctors, first, health should not have borders, it is a human right. Second, we have the commitment, and we are going to fulfill it, to guarantee the right to health, something that our opponents have done,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mexican professionals have once again raised their voices, rejecting López Obrador’s arguments. “There are enough general health professionals as well as specialists to fill the existing vacancies,” said the Collective of Doctors in Training in a statement, where it also specifies that currently in the country “200,000 medical students are being trained.”
The group reminded the Government of Mexico that “what is urgently needed are decent, safe jobs, with sufficient infrastructure and supplies, and well-paid by public institutions.”
Similar is the position of the infectologist and former commissioner against influenza in Mexico Alejandro Macías. What we have in Mexico, specified in their social networksare “many unemployed doctors, in need of training and with job opportunities that pay them decently.”
The hiring of health personnel on the Island has been marked by opacity and controversy. The coordinator of the opposition National Action Party (PAN) in the Senate, Julen Rementería, turned to their social networks to remember that in 2021 they hired 585 Cubans “without title”.
Hiring, he said, must be in accordance with established standards. “If a Cuban doctor comes to practice, he has to revalidate his studies”
For the retired minister of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, José Ramón Cossío, the controversy centers on “a possible crime.” Hiring, he said, must be in accordance with established standards. “If a Cuban doctor comes to practice, he has to revalidate his studies.”
Cossío based his criticism on the article 5 of the Constitution in which it is established that for the “exercise of one or several specialties, authorization from the General Directorate of Professions is required”.
When López Obrador pointed out that they will act as specialists, Cossío explained that for this to happen, Cuban health workers “must obtain the corresponding certificate.” The case was different during the pandemic, he argued, when this relationship was allowed due to the health emergency, but now it is a different situation.
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