Girls and boys under the age of five and diagnosed with severe deafness can hear if they undergo a cochlear implant; for them, Seguro Popular and the Seguro Médico Siglo XXI program were the panacea… but not anymore. The elimination of the insurance and the program – decided by the federal government – left INER, in charge of interventions, without resources. A federal judge ordered the administration to perform these surgeries on two girls whose parents filed an injunction. Proceso presents the cases of the two little ones, whose future could be doomed to silence.
MEXICO CITY (Process).– The elimination of Seguro Popular and the Seguro Médico Siglo XXI program, decreed by the current government, left in limbo the acquisition of cochlear implants that must be received by children under five years of age diagnosed with severe deafness.
For this reason, a federal judge ordered the administration to perform the necessary surgeries to place cochlear implants in two girls who received medical attention through the XXI Century Medical Insurance program.
Wendy and Blanca – their real names are withheld to protect their identity – are fighting against time to get the surgery they need, as they are four years and five months and four years and eight months old, respectively, and if they don’t get the implant before Before they turn five they risk being completely deaf for the rest of their lives.
And it is that, although they were diagnosed from a very early age, their medical care was also paralyzed by the covid-19 pandemic.
The girls have already sued the Ministry of Health (SS), the Institute of Health for Well-being (Insabi) and the National Institute of Respiratory Diseases (INER), because although they complied with all the necessary protocol and their doctors qualified them as candidates for receive cochlear implants, the federal government has not acquired them, because with the disappearance of the Siglo XXI Medical Insurance program, there is no budget item assigned for these acquisitions.
This, despite the fact that according to the mandate of the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the Insabi absorbed the Siglo XXI Medical Insurance and, at least until 2020, it did acquire cochlear implants, whose costs range from 500 to 800 thousand pesos.
Initially, the federal government announced that the Siglo XXI Medical Insurance program, through Insabi, would receive inputs in kind to continue its operation and that children under five years of age who are not entitled to IMSS or ISSSTE continue to receive free medical care.
However, in accordance with the 2022 Federation Expenditure Budget approved by the Chamber of Deputies, the Ministry of Finance left the Siglo XXI Medical Insurance program at zero pesos, which served more than 4 million families.