Mexico Receives Ventilator Shipment

Tuesday morning saw the landing of a Boeing 767 owned by FedEx at the Toluca International Airport tarmac. Inside this plane were 211 ventilators, plus additional PPE sent by US company Hamilton Medical from that company’s plant in Reno, Nevada. This was one of six planes scheduled to arrive at this airport full of medical equipment. 

The arrival was accompanied by a speech from Minister of Foreign Relations Marcelo Ebrard. According to a report by Milenio, Ebrard said that a total of 603 ventilators would be arriving to Mexico throughout the month of May. Additionally, he claimed that the purchase of these ventilators was made with a 70 percent discount for the Mexican government. In his statement, Ebrard explained that the possible scarcity of PPE and of ventilators were the two main areas of concern for the federal government as it continues to deal with the COVID-19 crisis. PPE is produced and manufactured nationally, but an additional complimentary stock is necessary to ease the worries of health officials. 

During his speech and in a tweet published later that day, Ebrard thanked US ambassador to Mexico Chris Landau, Bob Hamilton of Hamilton Medical and Jorge Torres of FedEx for their contributions to making this shipment possible. Landau responded to this tweet praising Ebrard and his team at SRE, while also commenting on the need for both nations to cooperate when it comes to addressing the scarcity of ventilators. Of these 211 machines, 22 will be given to SEMAR, 10 will be used by the Navy Medical Center in Mexico City and 12 will be given to SEDENA to be used within ambulances, planes and helicopters. The remaining ventilators will be distributed between Mexico City, State of Mexico, Baja California, Quintana Roo and Tabasco. 

This shipment and the opening of additional hospital facilities in places like Mexico City's Banamex Convention Center would appear to indicate an approach to logistics adequately focused on planning ahead and being responsibly ready for all possible eventualities at a public, systemic and institutional level.