Public health, essential in the fight against inequality: López-Gatell

Laura Poy Solano

Newspaper La Jornada
Saturday May 14, 2022, p. 8

When commemorating the centenary of the Mexico School of Public Health (ESPM), the undersecretary of Health Prevention and Promotion, Hugo López-Gatell, stressed that public health is at the center of social welfare.

Gathered at the Teopanzolco Cultural Center, in Cuernavaca, Morelos, where the unveiling of the commemorative lottery ticket for its centenary took place, he assured that the Fourth Transformation is an opportunity to shake the reality of the country and rethink what we can do.

Before the general director of the National Institute of Public Health (INSP), Eduardo Lazcano Ponce, he urged ESPM to review what strategic niche it wants to occupy as a trainer of great talents in the field of public health, so that once they graduate they can be inserted in public and academic events, but also in communities where the population requires support.

He stressed that the transformation of the national health system implies recognizing social inequality as one of the most harmful elements that permeates all of public life, since the damage it causes is structural.

He also recalled the monstrous epidemic of obesity and overweight and chronic diseases that affects the country, and that, he affirmed, it was not the result of an overnight decisionbut of a process that has been in the making for 40 years.

He added that the INSP was a central element in the recognition of this health problem and in understanding its root causes, which are not limited to lifestyle, since it is a public health problem. Added to this, he said, is a deterioration massive of the environment in the country.

It’s not about blaming the past

Faced with such a complex reality, he recognized that for years there was a limited capacity in the health system to provide prevention, cure and rehabilitation services.

He recalled that since 1982 began the process of decentralization of health services, which ended in 1996 with the creation of 32 state health systems. It is not about blaming the past, but about promoting a reflexive analysis to understand where we are heading, and he stressed that a priority is the separation of political power from economiche emphasized.