A group of 119 Cuban doctors will arrive in Mexico in January 2023 to provide specialized services in that country, as announced by that country’s health authorities.
During a regular morning press conference hosted by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Director of the National Institute of Social Security Zoé Robledo reported on the hiring of specialists from the island to work in the area.
We must guarantee quality medical care and free medicines to the entire population. Morning Conference https://t.co/rcg0xoK8iV
– Andrés Manuel (@lopezobrador_) December 27, 2022
Referring to this experience, he explained that 491 Cuban doctors are already working in 11 states of the country in very difficult and marginal places, contributing to the care 24 hours a day in the hospitals where they are stationed, according to the agency Prensa Latina ( PL). .
“In these remote places where there was no medical care for many years, the cooperation with Cuba through the Ministry of Health since the signing of the agreement on July 20 is essential, a contingent of men and women with a lot of experience,” he added added .
The official assured that thanks to this alternative, internal medicine, pediatrics, cardiology, ENT, trauma, orthopedics, hemophilia, anesthesia and emergency services, among others, can be provided in these locations.
He also stated that the international appeal launched by the López Obrador government is maintained and that so far 994 doctors from numerous countries have responded, including Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador and the United States.
Since the most critical moments of the COVID-19 pandemic, hundreds of Cuban doctors have provided services in hospitals in the Mexican capital under contracts that have caused controversy due to their costs and the activities they carry out.
Local medical schools have questioned this attitude when there are unemployed Mexican specialists. López Obrador acknowledged that there are vacancies in the Mexican Institute of Social Security and the Institute of Security and Social Services for State Employees, but they are not filled because they are in rural and marginalized areas.
An agreement signed last May during the visit of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to Havana provides, in a first phase, for the deployment of 500 Cuban doctors to the Aztec nation in order to guarantee its citizens a universal health plan.
The Mexican President has reiterated that Cuban doctors will continue to be hired, even if it hurts conservative politicians, since the purpose is to offer free and quality care to all Mexicans and to reach the whole country with this service.
At the end of July, the first group of Cuban specialists, stationed in the state of Nayarit, almost 800 kilometers from the Mexican capital, arrived in the Central American nation.
The signed agreement also defines the Mexican government’s purchase of Abdala vaccines to combat COVID-19 infections in the country, where the first batch arrived in late November.