IMSS to Administer 200 New Hospitals

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador pledged to open a total of 200 hospitals by the end of his six-year term. He also mentioned that the 80 Bienestar hospitals built to date and the 120 remaining will not be administered by the Ministry of Health (SSA) or the states but will be part of the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS).

This announcement was made during the inauguration of an expansion of the San Quintín IMSS-Bienestar Rural Hospital, the second-largest rural hospital in the country. The President emphasized that this action aims to help those who do not have social security and cannot afford private medical care. "This hospital has very high-tech medical equipment, the most advanced in medicine. We also want the 200 hospitals to be like this, to have all the specialties, to have all the personnel," said López Obrador.

The hospitals already built and those yet to be built will not be included within the federal or the state Ministries of Health to avoid the repetition of previous, where money was diverted and necessary medicines and supplies were not purchased. López Obrador pointed out that health is a universal right and added that the federal government is working to ensure that everyone has free medical care and medicines regardless of their economic situation.

As reported by El Sol de México, for this year, IMSS-Bienestar’s per capita spending is the lowest in the system at MX$1,170 (US$59). The administration’s other bet to care for the most vulnerable, the Instituto de Salud para el Bienestar (Insabi), has MX$2,911 (US$147) per capita spending. Both budgets are below the MX$29,803 (US$1,502) that, on average, each Pemex worker has available for health services, according to data from the Center for Economic and Budgetary Research (CIEP).

In order to provide adequate services, the President detailed that a larger budget will be allocated to IMSS. The institute will be charged with the task of guaranteeing the health rights of the country’s poorest people and, at the same time, avoiding corruption. He commented that "We are going to entrust the IMSS with the task of guaranteeing the healthcare of the poorest and humble people." He also reiterated that the personnel hired during the health emergency will not be dismissed.

The President ended his speech by clarifying that "We have three years left and that is why we have to apply ourselves thoroughly and hurry up everything we do to hand over the baton already with a different country: a new, fraternal, supportive, more humane, more egalitarian country, a country with a government of the people for the people and with the people."