The Mexican government announced on Tuesday what the “strengthening of health cooperation” agreed with Cuba last May means: in the coming months it will import another 2,700 doctors from the Island. With this hiring, said the official in the daily presidential press conference, “small hospitals and centers” in rural areas will be able to count on “at least 12 doctors,” which will guarantee that there is service seven days a week in all work shifts.
The director of the IMSS explained that they have detected 282 hospitals with 20 beds in rural areas where four doctors worked, affecting health services. “Many times we could have the anesthesiologist but there was no surgeon, or vice versa, so we took on the task of calling up doctors,” said Robledo.
Robledo, are in Mexican territory, specifically spread across 23 states. These are part of a first agreement, signed in 2023, by which the Island would send 1,200 doctors to work in remote areas of the country. Among the new specialists there will be “internal medicine, pediatrics and emergencies,” said Robledo. He also said that surgeons, anesthesiologists and gynecologists-obstetricians are required.
The official also indicated that Cuban doctors will be part of the Imss-Bienestar, the free health organization created by the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador to replace the Seguro Popular, in force until that time. However, he did not speak of the payment they will make to the company Neuronic Mexicana, a subsidiary of Neuronic S.A. Cuba, which since 2018 is a representative of the products and services of the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry of the Island and is under the presidency of the Cuban Tania Guerra.
A source from the Mexican Health Department confirmed to 14ymedio last July that specialists affiliated with the IMSS-Bienestar will receive salaries of 50,000 pesos (2,732 dollars per month), in addition to a bonus of 10,000 pesos (545 dollars), for a total of 3,277 dollars.
In February 2023, a specialist said that they only receive “a stipend for their needs,” that is, that their “salary is in Cuba.” Of the amount paid by the López Obrador Administration, the Government of the Island keeps the majority of the salary. Organizations such as Prisoners Defenders have questioned the Government of Mexico for hiring Cuban professionals in “slavery-like conditions.”
The temporary migration program for health workers with “friendly countries,” it has denounced, is nothing more than the main source of foreign currency for the Cuban regime, which receives compensation for each professional at the cost of the health workers submitting to contractual conditions that violate international standards of decent work and of outrageous “the human condition to the limits.”
She also reported that the call for hiring nursing staff is still open, which includes 3,646 vacancies: 1,027 nursing assistants and 2,619 general nursing in 27 entities.
Although neither party mentions it, specialists suspect that the importation of doctors is the counterpart for oil shipments from Mexican ports, which are becoming more frequent. In any case, relations between the two countries seem to continue to strengthen during the presidency of Claudia Sheimbaum, who will take office on October 1.
Key to this is the figure of Lázaro Cárdenas Batel, who served as chief advisor to Andrés Manuel López Obrador and who will be the next head of the Office of the Presidency of the Republic, as announced by the president-elect on July 12. He is unofficially credited with the initiative to import Cuban doctors, as well as establishing various commercial relations between both countries.
Source: 14ymedio
