The private initiative in Monclova spends large amounts of money for its workers on medical care through private services due to the deficient situation of Social Security, which lacks sufficient infrastructure due to lack of expansion and modernization, stated the president of the Employers’ Confederation of the Mexican Republic (Coparmex), Mario Coria.
The representative of the employers’ leadership explained that medical care at the Mexican Social Security Institute, due to a lack of doctors, spaces and technology, is very slow and takes time.
“Waiting time costs us more to see our workers than to send them to see private doctors,” he said.
NO BUDGET FOR THE CENTRAL REGION
While on December 26, the head of the IMSS in Coahuila, Leopoldo Villarreal Arreygue, announced an investment of 150 million pesos for first, second and third level medical units, for the Comarca Lagunera, in the Central Region, which has Several works approved, no resources were allocated.
Expansions and re-equipment of the Emergency Room and the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Hospital General de Zona (HGZ) number 7 of the Monclova IMSS have been repeatedly authorized for at least seven years, but authorized resources have not been released.
On November 3, 2017, after two years of demanding them, the then federal deputy Guadalupe Oyervides announced that the work would finally be carried out.
He argued that the Security Commission of the Lower House approved (again) 100 million pesos for the extensions, restorations, adjustments and re-equipment with modern technology for the Emergency Room of the IMSS in Monclova. The again approved budget did not arrive.
The Rural Hospital number 51 of the IMSS located in San Buenaventura, in 2018 was closed due to the deterioration of the property, at risk of collapsing at any time on medical personnel and patients, due to the zero maintenance received for years.
Municipal and state authorities supported the institute so that it could offer some of the services, such as external medicine, in a borrowed building.
The President of the Republic, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, on September 27, 2019, visited the small rural community of San Bonés and in what the federal government called “a dialogue with the Rural Hospital community” promised to build a new medical center, complete, to replace the missing one.
He announced that construction would begin shortly, but at the end of 2022, three years later, the work has not yet begun and there are resources for construction.
The Monclova business chambers have repeatedly requested the federal government to release the authorized budget for both hospitals, located in the Central Region of Coahuila.
They also question the canceled construction of a new Zone General Hospital in the steel capital, projected on federal highway 57 North, next to the educational complex of the Technological University of the Central Region of Coahuila and the Autonomous University of Durango.
The City Council donated land and the construction project was presented, which was approved by the Technical Council of the Mexican Social Security Institute.
Later this same Council canceled the work, arguing that a larger hospital center is required. The one that would be built would have 134 countable beds, but more are required in the central region. However, the resource for this larger capacity hospital is not approved, Mario Coria said.
The resources for the construction of the family medicine unit that would be built in the border city, a project approved in 2020, have not been lowered either.
Resources do not arrive to repair the facilities of the family medicine unit number 9 of Frontera, which last year suffered a fire in the archives area. ‘On August 6, Leopoldo Villarreal Arreygue reported that the construction of the Rural Hospital 51 in San Buenaventura promised by López Obrador was authorized.
The project, he said, would be carried out with an investment of 250 million pesos. “The only thing left is for the Treasury to release the page to lower the resources,” he explained.
However, the budget released for Coahuila corresponded to 150 million pesos to be applied in La Laguna.