Eric Andrade Ramírez, a 24-year-old medical intern, was assassinated last Friday, July 15, while treating two patients at a clinic in Pueblo Nuevo, in the state of Durango. This is not an isolated event, they say medical students in social service from different states, who have experienced violence and are now fighting to integrate a national movement that makes them visible and generates an improvement in the conditions in which they carry out their internships.
“We want the population to know that the case of our colleague Eric is not an isolated case. Only it is very difficult to report. There is fear of the criminal groups, but also of the authorities because they threaten us that we will not be titled. There is fear even of reporting harassment of residents or patients, because later if they don’t move you from the place, you remain at great risk, ”says an intern from Durango, who prefers that her name not be made public.
However, the doctor in training affirms that as a result of the murder of her partner Eric Andrade, reports of violence by interns have intensified and that they are trying to integrate a movement with other states to make this visible.
The same increased in verbal complaints and risk cases point out Eva Pizzolato, representative of the National Assembly of Intern Physicians, and Andrés Castañeda, coordinator of the Collective of Physicians in Training.
“We have received reports of violence in states not only in the north, but also in Michoacán, for example, where there are colleagues who report that members of criminal groups arrive to take over places and even enter their homes. There are also cases in which they are kidnapped for serving police officers whom organized crime wants to eliminate or to serve their own colleagues,” says Castañeda.
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It is also frequent, he says, that cases are reported in which the interns hear the shootings and the only thing they can do is lock themselves in the clinics.
That just happened to a doctor in social service, whom we will call Martha. She does her internship in a community in Michoacán, in the part where Tierra Caliente begins. “I am in the municipal seat, but about 20 minutes away there is a small town. A few months ago, one day in the morning I was at the clinic, I went out for a patient and I saw a lot of smoke. The first thing I thought was that it was a fire, but the residents themselves told me, no, doctor, the bad guys have arrived.”
Martha says that in those events, organized crime groups murdered people and looted and burned houses. “Shortly after we saw the smoke, National Guard helicopters began to pass by and in the afternoon, the family of a colleague confirmed to us that the bad guys had burned houses and killed people.”
The intern spoke with the person in charge of the clinic, concerned above all about the night shifts that she has to do. “I stay on weekends at night, I told him what I was going to do if one day armed people came to touch me so that I would attend to them, he told me that nothing was happening, that he would just lock me up and that’s it.”
The young woman then went to the health jurisdiction to complain, but she only found the answer that social service was like that, risky, and that if she wanted to be transferred to another place, it was not a solution because it was the same in many places.
“I didn’t even want them to move me, I just asked them to equip the clinic well, because if armed people come to ask for the service and there’s nothing to attend to them with, they get angry and we put ourselves at great risk.”
That is the same fear of another intern, whom we will call Laura. She says that she also had to do shifts on weekend nights, when she was alone with the nursing intern and the pharmacy staff. “Once we started hearing detonations around 10 p.m., they lasted about 10 minutes, calmed down for half an hour and started again. We saw many patrols go by. We opted to just lock ourselves in. After a while wounded people came to play. We don’t open it because we don’t have anything to attend to them. Luckily they left, ”she says.
But the next day, there was another shooting. “I told the director of the clinic to at least take away my weekend shifts in the municipal seat, where the bullets were. He told me that he couldn’t take my guards off me. I had to submit many documents to the jurisdiction to avoid being at the clinic on weekend nights, when there were more shootings.”
Pizzolato comments that there are fellow interns at great risk, precisely because they are alone in the clinics and the infrastructure to keep them safe is deficient. “We have a report from an intern who tells us that the lock on the door of the room where she should sleep does not have a lock, just a wire, so she prefers to sleep in the clinic, where at least there is a lock.”
By having to live in the communities, because they are far from their homes or in places with inaccessible transportation, many interns are available to people 24 hours a day, every day of the week and that also puts them at high risk. .
“People arrive with an emergency and they arrive desperate. The interns do not have material or supplies to serve them and they get angry. That has always happened, only now the people are armed and the interns are in great danger, not only from members of organized crime, but also from the residents,” says Castañeda.
And it is that, in addition, there are cases in which the interns are alone in the clinics, without qualified medical personnel to guide them. “They use them to fill the positions that should be assigned to a general practitioner. They save those salaries because they are paid very little as a scholarship. And there is no one to guide them. In social service, interns learn at the expense of people with fewer resources”, says the coordinator of the Collective of Doctors in Training.
According to data from the Ministry of Health, in 2021, in 1,586 clinics in the country of this dependency (11% of the total, which is 14 thousand 216), located in the poorest and most remote communities, all the medical personnel were interns, there were no qualified doctors.
The movement for change
As a result of the murder of his partner Eric Andrade —who was shot after a group of men arrived at the clinic in Pueblo Nuevo, Durango, to request medical attention for two young people who were allegedly intoxicated with alcohol and drugs and began to fight among themselves—and with everything they face in social service, the interns have begun to organize.
There have not only been marches and protests in Durango. Together with interns from other entities, such as Coahuila, Zacatecas, Veracruz, Oaxaca and Mexico City, Andrade’s colleagues are raising their voices.
“We are in talks, exchanging information, designing petitions. The Assembly of Intern Doctors and the Collective of Doctors in Training are supporting us to generate a national movement. We want people to know that it’s not that we don’t want to care for them in remote communities, it’s that we don’t have what, many times there is not even suture material for those who work in the field and arrive with a wound from some tool, “says the intern from Durango.
And he adds: “we know that many changes are required and that some will take time because the legislation would even have to be changed, but for now we ask that interns be removed from clinics that are not well equipped and do not have adequate infrastructure. , sometimes there are no locks on the doors and the fences with a jump are jumped “.
But the intern says that above all they just ask that these clinics be well equipped, so that they can carry out their work. “We are not just asking for security for ourselves, but also decent care for the people.”
Pizzolato also says that he is asking for certified staff to be hired at all clinics and for all shifts, instead of using interns to fill these slots. Another demand is that the time of social services be reduced. “We doctors do a year of service when in all other professions it only lasts six months.”
One more request is an increase in scholarships, which range from 2,200 to 3,500 per month, depending on how remote and marginalized the community where the internship is held is.
“What medical interns are being asked to do is prepare a list of petitions by state and take it to the educational and health authorities. At the federal level we intend to contact the Ministry of Health, already with all the requirements collected, also with the Ministry of Education and with the legislative power so that the necessary processes can be initiated to improve internships, “says Pizzolato.
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