- The IMSS managed to attract 634 medical specialists to work in hospitals in rural areas.
- The director of Social Security affirmed that he aspires to achieve a truly preventive health system.
- During the last months, more than a hundred hospitals have declared bankruptcy in the world, especially in China, the United States and Japan.
One of the commitments of the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) is to strengthen care in hospitals in rural areas. In addition to poor infrastructure, some lack medical specialists, leaving the population vulnerable. For this reason, changes have been proposed to achieve a better distribution throughout the national territory.
For his part, in the In the process of federalization of the state health systems, the Mexican government has carried out the diagnostic survey of nearly 7,000 First Level care units. What has been observed is that each one has an ID designed to review the services, programs, equipment, supply of medicines and healing material, informed the general director, Zoé Robledo.
During the XIX Congress of Research in Public Health held at the National Institute of Public Health, the IMSS official pointed out that the field survey as the first exercise has taken time and is currently continuing. This action has made it possible to have a diagnostic roadmap to find out how the health systems are and to know what has to be done to develop a real transformation.
“The population cannot continue waiting for us to agree or to design and implement something with a promise to establish it for the next generations. We have to do it now and we have to do it together, and then we will be able to say that this initial purpose of taking and raising the right to health to constitutional status will be a reality.”
Increase in IMSS personnel in rural areas
Zoé Robledo highlighted that one of the main challenges is hiring specialist doctors. Therefore, it was achieved recruit 634 doctors graduated from the Social Security headquarters to work in the OPD IMSS-Bienestar. On the other hand, in branches that have field rotation in the last year such as Pediatrics, Gynecology, Internal Medicine, Surgery and Anesthesiology, now also in 250 hospitals that are part of the transfer of State Health services to IMSS-Bienestar.
During the 19th Public Health Research Congress of the @inspmxthe mtro. @zoerobledoManaging Director of #IMSSparticipated in the Plenary “Transformation of the National Health System”. #19CONGISP #EquityandSustainability pic.twitter.com/LPJImU6hLG
— IMSS (@Your_IMSS) March 15, 2023
He affirmed that the Bienestar Health Care Model is truly preventive by training more specialists in Family Medicine who will be assigned to IMSS-Bienestar hospitals.
“At this moment there are 141 family doctors, the first generation, hired at IMSS-Bienestar for First Level care units, especially in urban centers, and from there we will go to the rest.”
The head of Social Security remarked that there is a truly preventative model because in past administrations this purpose was abandoned. Preference was given to the curative and there was a non-existence of family medicine in any state health service at the First Level of care.
He said that the strengthening of federalism makes it possible to ensure the constitutional right to health and also proposed to eradicate a model that was based on finances. Before, the fragmentation of the health system deepened and therefore increased the lack of effective access to health services and insufficient financing schemes were presented to assume growing responsibilities.
Zoé Robledo stressed that a mandate was established: design and publish a strategic health program for Well-being that would establish three elements: progressivity, service coverage and the care model. In this sense, it was considered to make IMSS-Bienestar the cornerstone towards the universalization of health services with a 100 percent public, free system, with centralized, universal planning, broad coverage and focused on prevention.
Bankrupt hospitals in other countries
He explained that there is private hospital consortiums declared bankrupt all over the world: 46 in China, 36 in the United States, 33 in Japan, in Germany they are experiencing a crisis because one in three private hospitals is bankrupt because they cannot pay the increase in electricity prices, “in Germany they had to modify their model of financing with the government, going from a model that was calculated by bed-days and that generated very long hospital stays, to a diagnostic one that now caused unnecessary interventions”.
Zoé Robledo commented that a public institution seeks to serve the largest number of population. For this reason, it is proposed that the coverage be 100 percent free, unlike some countries with minimum coverage and prepayments or premiums, where from income one finances one’s own health.
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