Mexico Combats Health Services Interruption

WHO warned countries about neglecting other health services to solely focus on COVID-19. The virus is a global threat that has caused an interruption in regular health services and health-related supply chains around the world. Mexico, with a historical epidemiological profile, needs to cope with this dangerous reality.

According to the WHO’s publication, non-communicable disease prevention and treatment services have been interrupted since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. “(This is) a very worrying situation since these ills cause the annual death of more than 40 million people,” states the report. The organization conducted a survey in 155 countries in May to reveal the former result and finding out that many of those countries have partially or totally discontinued treatment programs for hypertension, diabetes and complications related to these diseases.

The report explains that one of the main reasons why this is happening is because almost all medical staff working on noncommunicable diseases (NCD) were reassigned to the COVID-19 frontline. The second reason being patients rescheduling or cancelling planned treatments as they fear going to the hospital for many reasons: public transportation exposure, contagion at hospital facilities and lack of staff for the procedure or treatment. WHO concluded by saying that attention to NCD was resuming as the virus slowed down in certain regions but that it is important, in the meantime, to find alternative methods, such as telemedicine or remote follow up to approach patients. In Mexico and Latin America “clearly the situation of COVID-19 is far from being stable,” said yesterday Mike Ryan, WHO’s Executive Director for Sanitary Emergencies.

Private healthcare providers have told MBN about their ways of contributing during the crisis and many of them include strengthening and supporting the system by treating NCD patients. One example is the network of ambulatory clinics and kidney centers, Médica Santa Carmen, which, according to its CEO and Founder “has been operating at a higher capacity than before as our patients need to continue with their therapies. We have been receiving more people as clinics that used to attend patients with renal insufficiency are now dedicated to receiving COVID-19 patients,” he says. Renal insufficiency is still the second cause of death in Mexico and Médica Santa Carmen has already received patients with acute kidney failure caused by septic shock or COVID-19 effects.

Clinics like Alivia in the northern part of the country told MBN that they “have seen growth in demand as patients in need of regular treatments come to us because they fear going to a hospital that is treating many COVID-19 patients. We are the best alternative to provide those treatments and we are following the instructions of the Ministry of Health to continue working and avoid endangering our patients and staff,” said David Benavides, Vice President at Alivia.

In Mexico City, Isaac Ochoa, Founder of Clinimed and the Salud en Movimiento foundation explained how together, both entities created a plan to contribute during COVID-19 and “we have developed a program with the goal of helping the public sector deal with the burden of cases. This initiative is a virtual medical advisory program that costs MX$200 (US$8.35). The collected money will go to buy food for INER’s workers.” According to Ochoa, this is a way to provide follow-up for patients with other diseases or illnesses who do not need to visit a hospital or a doctor’s office. Also, the program has the option of a mental health consultation, which is a common problem during the pandemic.