The Institute of Health for Well-being (Insabi), an agency dependent on the Government of Mexico, plans to cover the lack of 66 national specialists for the state of Colima with the hiring of another 60 Cuban doctors. The doctors will be assigned to rural areas, where medicine shortages prevail, and 21% of the population (some 153,592 inhabitants) do not have access to health services.
According to data provided to 14ymedio for an Inabi worker, the island’s doctors will receive 2,042 dollars a month with “six-month contracts and a one-year stay,” although it is not known whether the Government of Cuba will be the manager of the agreement and will be the one to distribute the salary, as It happens in other medical brigades.
In Colima, the next arrival of Cuban gynecologists, internists, anesthesiologists, pediatricians and surgeons is expected, “whose hiring will take place along with the regularization of 870 temporary workers,” doctors and nurses who had already been working in state clinics.
The toilets will be destined for rural areas, where medicine shortages prevail, and 21% of the population does not have access to health services
This announcement comes one week after the arrival in the Mexican state of Nayarit of 54 doctors from the island, whose incorporation into second-level hospitals remains unknown, as well as the results of the assessments to which they have been subjected, which will serve as “leverage in the Directorate of Professionals”, a document that is also required of national doctors, according to the Secretary of Health of Nayarit, José Francisco Munguía. A source from the local health sector assures this newspaper that “some procedures still need to be covered.”
“It was expected that, this Monday, at least part of the brigade would already be joining the hospitals where they were assigned to start providing consultation,” says the local official. The federal health sector says it does not know the reasons for the delay.
In the hospital, located in the town of Las Varas, in the municipality of Compostela, the health authorities also ignore the arrival date of the Cuban doctors. “When do they arrive? No one knows,” says Rocío, a nurse from this town in the state of Nayarit whom she contacted 14ymedio. “All support is always welcome, but it bothers us that it is now that they pay attention to our hospital, which has so many needs, and all because of the arrival of Cuban doctors. In any case, I hope they arrive soon.”
And the residents of Puente de Camotlán (La Yesca), Jesús María (Del Nayar), San Francisco and Tondoroque (Bahía de Banderas) and the municipal capitals of Santiago Ixcuintla, Rosamorada and Ixtlán del Río have not received specific news about the Cuban doctors. .
“The reality is that the Mexican government wants to give money to the Cuban government, period,” said Xavier Tello, a doctor and health policy analyst.
This Sunday, Xavier Tello, a doctor and health policy analyst, explained that in order for Cubans to practice their profession in Mexico, they require “a Mexican professional license to accredit their studies and in the case of specialists, they must have a certification from the Advice of his specialty”.
Tello pointed out in an interview to the Radio Formula chain, that “the only way they can attend to a person is under the direct supervision of a Mexican doctor with a professional license, but they cannot issue a medical prescription or offer diagnostic criteria.”
For the analyst, “the reality is that the Mexican government wants to give money to the Cuban government, period.” This will be done, according to Tello, through two ways: “Bringing these doctors and sending some Mexican scholars to study the Island”.
This newspaper unsuccessfully tried to contact the Cuban health workers, who were staying until further notice at the La Palomas hotel in Tepic. “Calls cannot be passed to them,” said the receptionist, who noted that they leave the hotel early and spend almost nine hours at the headquarters of the state delegation of the Mexican Institute of Social Security in Nayarit.
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