The President of the Republic, after his visit to Cuba, announced that he would bring 800 Cuban doctors to the public health sector, arguing that “in Mexico there is a shortage of doctors.”
In recent days and since the return of the Cuban president, there has been an avalanche of criticism of this measure. The medical community reacted by denying AMLO’s statement. The president gave the doctors a sharp comment in his morning homily, causing him anger.
We are not certain that the members of the medical brigades that came from Cuba are doctors. We do not know which Mexican or international professional body endorsed his knowledge. We don’t even know if they took an exam, like the CENEVAL one. On the other hand, we know that the island’s government withholds most of his salary, and that the slave’s family is held hostage by the Cuban State, if he decides not to return to his country. The cost of the Cubans is excessive; an article by the Mexican ambassador Pascoe Pierce, which appeared in Excelsior, showed that the payment given to the Cuban government for the visit of these forced laborers is equivalent to 144,333 pesos per month for each one of them.
According to the site comparacarreras.org, carefully maintained by my colleagues Pablo Clark and Fátima Masse, from Imco, with data from Inegi, in Mexico there are 451.2 thousand people in the medical profession, 3.1 percent of those who have a professional career. Doctors are the tenth profession with more members. Imco compares the relationship between the return and the risk of undertaking this profession, and evaluates it as excellent in public universities and good in private universities. That is, studying medicine is profitable.
In all professions there are those who do very well, regular and worse. In Mexico, doctors attached to pharmacies are poor. Still, doctors in Mexico fare better than other professions. Its unemployment rate is 1.8 percent; the national average is 4.6. Its economic informality rate is 18 percent; the national average is 55.8. Their average monthly salary is almost 18 thousand pesos, which places them as the best paid profession in the country. They deserve it. They study hard, at least five years longer than other professionals, and have long hours and few days off. Why would the Mexican government hire slaves for eight times the average cost of a Mexican doctor?
According to data from the World Bank, Mexico has 4.8 doctors for every thousand inhabitants. Compared to the United States, we are doing well: they have 2.6. Italy has 7.9 and Cuba has 8.3. The number of the European Union on average is close to that of Mexico: 4.5.
The public health budget in Mexico in 2022 is 793.95 billion pesos. In 2018, it was 591.17 billion. It has increased by 34 percent in nominal terms since the previous administration. Accumulated inflation from December 2018 to April 2022 has been 17.3 percent. Inflation has eaten up half of the budget increase. It must be taken into account that the disappearance of the financial mechanisms of Seguro Popular and the emergency caused by covid-19 had an impact on health resources. On the private side, costs have risen; According to private sources, inflation in private medicine is up to four times the general rate. Hospital oligopolies contribute to these increases, which have tested the viability of private health insurance.
Some conclusions: 1. Mexico abolished slavery in 1813, by proclamation of Morelos. Article 2 of the 1917 Constitution prohibits it. The hiring of Cuban slaves in the conditions in which they were made violates our Magna Carta and our tradition. 2. There is no shortage of doctors. We are comparable to the average country in the European Union. But health care costs have skyrocketed. Bringing in expensive and dubious quality Cuban workers does not help reduce costs. It could be thought that it is a diversion of health resources, if it turns out that the slaves are not actually doctors. 3. We have made the work of doctors in the public sector more precarious, eliminating positions and taking away tools and resources. 4. The attraction of foreign professionals, in any discipline, should be done under competitive conditions, homologating degrees and experience. 5. Alienating the medical community does nothing for governance. Why does the president insult them? 6. Cofece must investigate the market structure of the private hospital industry.