Mexico City- Attending a health center in areas under the control of drug traffickers in Mexico represents, for medical interns, risking their lives and providing care at gunpoint, they reveal in testimonies collected by Reforma.
“What the hell do you care what my name is? I need you to give me what I need and, if I don’t feel better, I’ll come for you,” was the response that intern Carlos received, when he asked the name of the 15-year-old teenager and a 16-year-old who came to seek medical attention for severe abdominal pain.
The “chavito”, the doctor said, was armed. “The attention was given to him armed”, and he did not arrive alone.
“There were like four or five. They entered with heavy weapons of long weapons, with radios, caps, in a fairly large truck,” he recalled.
The incident occurred in October of last year at the Tepehuanes health center, Durango, approximately four hours from the capital.
The doctor explained to the young man that he had signs of appendicitis and that he required tests to confirm the diagnosis.
“The most I could offer her was a pain pill and that wasn’t going to fix her problem. I was scared, but I made it clear that she needed to go for higher level care.
“The only thing he told me was: ‘I’m talking to my boss right now.
Who was his boss? Why did I have to notify him, if the attention was direct with him?
lifts
The shifts at dawn represent a high risk for interns.
A doctor said that in November of last year, at two in the morning, a group of four people with long weapons came for him.
They took him in a truck without license plates, with tinted and armored windows, to care for an elderly woman in critical condition who needed to be taken to a hospital.
“She had diabetic ketoacidosis, she was unconscious, quite dehydrated, with quite high glucose. She was the mother of one of those people. She had uncontrolled diabetes,” she said.
They got angry, but they agreed to take her to the nearest hospital and then one of them took her back to his health center in the same van.
no medicine
In Tepehuanes, Durango, a resident doctor receives a scholarship of 1,200 pesos fortnightly for attending a health center in deplorable conditions.
“We have nothing, sometimes not even gloves or syringes.
“When someone arrives in pain, the most that can be offered is paracetamol, naproxen,” he explained.
They don’t even dare to treat pregnant women.
“If they decide to have their baby in the health center, they run the risk of bleeding and not having a way to control it. Sometimes we don’t even have clean sheets. In the event of a complication, she dies there, there would be complications even with the newborn, no we have nothing for him.”
incommunicado
To get to his medical unit in Indé, Durango, Erick must ask the residents to “ride” because there is no public transportation. Without surveillance The resident doctor of Indé lamented that there is no presence of public security elements more frequently.
“It is ridiculous that a state police patrol shows up once every two weeks. The danger is latent.
“The vast majority of residents are used to having weapons in their homes here, because the presence of organized crime is obvious and we have no surveillance, we are unprotected,” he lamented.