What does a woman who is bedridden have in common? Yucatanan ejido representative in Tamaulipasan indigenous woman Durango that gave light to the road and some villagers from Coahuila? that in their communities, health services are precarious or non-existent.
In the Yucatecan municipality of SeyéFor example, Mrs. Edith Alvarado has been bedridden for 21 years due to beatings from her ex-husband. She is diabetic, she has speech problems and one of her daughters, the 22-year-old, has hearing and mobility problems. Guadalupe, another of her daughters, is the one who takes care of them. “There are no emergency services here, just consultations in pharmacies,” lamented Guadalupe. “The closest hospital is about half an hour away, but it doesn’t work either. We have to go to Mérida, to the IMSS Juarez Clinic. And the ambulance hardly ever takes us.”
Guadalupe says that going by public transport is very uncomfortable, since Doña Edith only moves in a wheelchair. They do, however, because the cost is 60 pesos per person, while a taxi charges between 350 and 700 pesos. Another alternative could be the patrol sent by the town hall, but the policemen have told them several times that it is not their obligation.
Guadalupe recounts that six months ago, when her son was born prematurely, she went to the Municipal Palace to ask for help. “My water broke and I walked six blocks to the Palace. I got to where the patrol is, and they told me that they couldn’t take me, to wait for me until 8:00 a.m. ”. She left on a motorcycle that her husband got.
Sonia is a young indigenous woman from El Mezquital, Durango, who also failed to finish her labor with her twins. Sonia was traveling from Tenerife, about eight hours on the way to the state capital. Her parents moved her to Guajolota, where the hospital is located, but her first twin, a boy, was born on a stretch of the road. They continued on their way until they reached the hospital. The girl did not survive.
When the indigenous people of the communities of Santa María de Ocotán or Huazamota, the most populated, travel to the capital of Durango to seek medical attention, they do not always arrive. Just a few days ago, a hundred-year-old woman from The Mezquital, lost his life in one of the traditional shelters, Tambitos. She did not get medical attention.
The community of Ciénega de la Purísima, an hour and a half from Saltillo, knows what distances mean. To get to or leave it, it is necessary to enter the mountains along winding dirt roads, along 30-meter overhangs, with ups and downs whose danger increases in rainy season.
“Since I came to live here, 30 years ago, we have had many emergencies and we have to see how we can get to the clinic”, says Antonia Fuentes, originally from the town of Jamé. “We are very forgetful of all those emergency aid. Here we take what we have, a paracetamol or an acetyl. We always have medicines or home remedies, for the same reason”.
According to Antonia, on several occasions they have been promised that a doctor will come to the health center. “But first they would have to remodel the facilities because they are very dilapidated,” he says, and immediately talks about another problem for the inhabitants: the costs of gasoline, medicine and, sometimes, doctors, since most do not have social security and have to seek care in private clinics. “My son-in-law sprained his face more than a month ago and since then my husband has taken him to rehab. Each lap comes out to us at around 600 pesos”.
In Altamira, Tamaulipas, the situation is not very different: the distances to health centers and hospitals means that the families of 32 ejidos and eight communities of the Tamesí River have a low probability of surviving in the event of getting sick or being victims of sting or bite of a poisonous animal. “There are people who have known how to take advantage of the situation and charge 40 pesos to take you on a motorcycle or tricycle to the clinics,” complains Dimas Salazar, an ejido representative in Benito Juárez.
The problem is accentuated in the houses that are located in the river banks, because they depend a lot on the capacity of their motors in the boats to get quickly to receive medical attention in Altamira. If it is a large motor, it takes 25 minutes. In the worst case, the tour is one hour. Once they arrive at the pier through the Champayan lagoon, they must pay for a taxi or walk several blocks to the DIF to be transferred to a hospital.
“There have been people who die in transit due to heart attacks or strokes,” says Ricardo Demes, a resident of the Martin A. Martínez community. to the DIF. By river it is one hour with a small motor. The fog is also a difficulty, there are those who have lost their way”.
For the 32 ejidos far from the urban zone, there are only four regional health centers. The inhabitants are forbidden to get sick on weekends, since the doctors only come from Monday to Friday.
DMZ