14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico City, 4 August 2024 — Last Friday, a contingent of 200 Cuban doctors crowded into the corridor of the migration area at Felipe Ángeles International Airport in the state of Mexico. The group, said Ambassador Marcos Rodríguez Costa, will be distributed in 19 states with the “noble work of saving lives.”
The diplomat did not offer more details. This group joins one that on July 20 arrived, with hardly any media coverage, at the same air terminal and was taken to a high-specialty hospital in Veracruz, where they are given courses for incorporation into the Imss-Bienestar program, which has been raised by the Government of Mexico as the free health agency implemented in 23 states of the country.
The arrival of these health contingents from the Island are part of the second group contracted by Mexico in March 2023, to have 1,200 doctors. In July of last year, the director of the Mexican Social Security Institute (Imss), confirmed that until that time there were 950 Cubans who had already been integrated into the health services.
For these physicians, Mexico pledged to pay $1,308,922 per month to Neuronic Mexicana, which depends on Neuronic S.A. Cuba. Since 2018, this company has been the representative of the products and services of the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries of the Island, under its president, Tania Guerra.
Mexico has been discreet about the distribution of the Cuban specialists and the functions they perform in the hospitals where they have been sent. However, a source confirmed to 14ymedio that the doctors began to be rotated this year through different parts of the territory. “The rotation is designated by the people in charge of the Cuban delegation with the consent of Imss-Bienestar. We don’t know the reason, but it could be that they detect too much friendliness with the inhabitants, and they don’t like that at all. They are afraid that they will run away [decide to stay in Mexico],” said the official.
Two Cuban internists, two pediatricians and a radiologist were sent to the rural hospital of the Veracruz municipality of Las Chopas last February, and a week ago they were informed that they would be sent to another clinic, which generated uncertainty among the local authorities. Mayor Marisela Hernández García reported on July 31 that together with the director of the hospital, Dr. Pedro Coronel Pérez, steps were taken to cover those spaces with “Cuban or foreign doctors so that service is not interrupted.” According to official figures, 25 doctors from the Island work in the state of Veracruz.
In the state of Colima, where the arrival of 86 specialists was reported, patients demonstrated on July 31 over the absence of doctors in the General Hospital of Ixtlahuacán. One patient complained about the lack of medical attention for not having a doctor. “They told me that I have to wait until August for an appointment, so where are the Cuban doctors?”
The woman was told that the hospital was not informed of the length of stay of the Island’s doctors. “It’s a federal provision,” they stressed. “These doctors have contracts, but when they leave, they don’t all come back; that was the case of a psychiatrist who did not return to the state for health reasons and two others who were relocated to other health centers.”
They informed her that in September they are terminating the contracts of pediatricians, a psychologist, surgeons and an internist. “Their last months will be spent in other states.”
The rotation of doctors takes a few days after the director of Imss, Zoé Robledo, confirms the hiring of another 3,800 Cubans. With the arrival of additional health workers – which will bring the total to 5,000 – they intend to complete the staff of specialists in those areas where there are facilities that “have an operating room, but don’t perform surgeries” or that have outpatient consultation areas, “but no doctors.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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