Total recovery of employment, reports the IMSS

Andrea Becerril

La Jornada newspaper
Saturday, November 6, 2021, p. eleven

The Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) achieved the maximum number of insured in its history, of 20 million 767 thousand registered workers, since the jobs lost in the pandemic caused by Covid-19 were fully recovered, announced its director before senators, Zoé Robledo Aburto.

This fact and the increase in the minimum wage led to the collection in Social Security reaching a preliminary amount of 32 thousand 128 million pesos, a figure that represents, compared to the IMSS budget, a surplus of one billion pesos compared to the goal we set for ourselves last year.

He explained that 172,000 workers joined Social Security in October and what is remarkable is not only the number of new jobs, but their quality, since they are permanent, well-paid jobs.

Is a historical figure for the IMSS, which is supported by the new laws that stopped the outsourcing.

Robledo Aburto specified that 2.9 million subcontracted workers already have their position in the real company for which they provide their services, with which 75 percent of them saw their salaries increased by 11 percent. This represents benefits in terms of insurance, disability and pensions, he added when appearing, together with the director of the Issste, before the Senate Health Commission.

Robledo Aburto stressed that the IMSS it’s more than the pandemic, since in addition to attending the health emergency, it is now in an intense process of recovering its services. He assured that the problem of children with cancer is addressed permanently with a comprehensive program and progress is being made to solve the supply of medicines throughout the country.

He specified that there is no generalized shortage and two strategies are already in place to supply drugs to areas of difficult access. The first includes periodic physical checks of inventories in pharmacies and warehouses, which has allowed in 2021 to carry out 7 thousand transfers of 4.3 million pieces from one Social Security Representation Office to another in the states.

The second, he said, are therapeutic substitutions to use more widely available drugs.

The director of the IMSS commented that they faced a model of purchasing medicines abroad by distributors that acted as intermediaries.

In total, ten companies, he revealed, concentrated 79 percent of spending on drugs, 241 billion pesos, the equivalent of the UNAM budget for five years.

That old model has been replaced and now there is a sectoral purchase of drugs, which managed to obtain 1,186 drug keys that represent a volume of 1,514 million pieces for the entire sector.

With the new indicator of filled recipes, he detailed, I can say that there have been problems in different codes, at different times, and even states or, in particular, specific units, but that does not mean a generalized shortage, nor does it make the assertion that there are no drugs in the country trueHe stressed at the appearance, in which all political forces recognized health workers for their work during the pandemic. There was even an opening applause for that white army.