The health system is not exempt from the adjustments implemented by the federal government to generate savings and materialize an efficient budget spending . For this reason, and because it provides services for millions of patients, any change, whether positive or negative, has a national impact.
In the last six months, there has been medicine shortages, cuts to financial aid for interns , and cases where hospital employees transport bodies through the stairs because elevators don't work or the cancellation of CT scans because there are no syringes at the hospital. But after patients and employees have protested, some services have been reestablished.
Today new information was revealed, which many consider as a sign of crisis at the public health sector . On June 15, 315 Medical Urban Units , affiliated to the IMSS-Prospera program , were closed. After the Prospera program was canceled, the IMSS will no longer receive resources to operate these units.
These facilities were distributed throughout 28 entities and their main purpose was to provide medical services to the population with no social security that inhabits marginalized urban areas . Between one and two teams formed by one doctor, two nurses, a community action promoter, and administrator , and a secretary worked in each of these facilities. In the state of Veracruz only, there were 19 Medical Urban Units t hat provided services for around 44,000 inhabitants. When patients ask where will they receive medical attention, doctors and nurses have no answers, since authorities only have them one precise instruction: vacate the facilities.
According to the testimony of one nurse, the dismissal of the employees wasn't characterized by adhering to the law : “We have no social security , we are hired through labor fees, we have no labor seniority , many times our payments were late and that never mattered, and now we are dismissed without a severance payment , there is no possibility to relocate us and the worst is that people who came here to control their diabetes, hypertension , monitor their pregnancy or in a preventative way no longer have those services.”
Closing 315 medical attention options even when there are no other options in the reorganization planned for the public health sector is a measure that will only affect the most vulnerable population .
Those who made key decisions from their office in Mexico City could be more emphatic with the patients. It won't be a huge effort.
gm