At the invitation and initiative of Mexico, Cuban medical science is inserted in the most ambitious public health project that this country has ever faced, being one of the most important and active economies in the world, it presented a secular backwardness in its system medical care to the population.
The reasons for this delay have been explained over and again by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and at its center have been very negative factors of a human nature, such as laziness, ambitions, monopolism in the medical-pharmaceutical sector, social discrimination and great corruption.
All these evils, and many more, were revealed during the Covid-19 pandemic that hit Mexico in a very dramatic way, causing more than a quarter of a million deaths, and taking place in hospitals, federal states and in the deepest interior of its geography, the deadly lack of specialists of all kinds.
This situation prompted the government of the 4th Transformation- López Obrador’s sociopolitical program- to accelerate its urgent development plans for a new public health system, whose epicenter would be a remodeling of its entire infrastructure.
It also includes a renovation and expansion of its professional and technical staff, for which it was necessary to hire specialists abroad and organize an urgent personnel training plan.
The main objective: to achieve a modern, well-equipped health system in record time, with the number of specialists and general practitioners required by a population of 127 million inhabitants.
An absolutely free medical benefit is added for all those people not covered by social security, which are the majority, as well as free delivery of medicines in hospitals.
For Mexico, Cuba was a benchmark country, since for 60 years it has been following these same paths and established with its own efforts a very effective and totally free health system recognized worldwide, accompanied, in addition, by great development in the drug industry and in mass training of doctors in all specialties.
The Caribbean island responded to the calls for this kind of strategic alliance in the sector, already with previous experience of collaborative actions with the dispatch of doctors to face situations such as those derived from the 1985 earthquake and the Covid-19 pandemic, but now with a greater scope as part of the IMSS-Bienestar Health Plan.
Although Díaz-Canel’s current visit will discuss other issues, health is the main one, hence López Obrador’s insistence on personally thanking the Cuban gesture.
The integration of the two delegations in a visit of little over 24 hours, indicates by itself the relevance of this important meeting.
Attending for Mexico were Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon, Secretary of Foreign Relations, Adán Augusto López Hernández, Secretary of the Interior, Luis Cresencio Sandoval González, Secretary of National Defense, José Rafael Ojeda Durán, Secretary of the Navy.
In addition, Raquel Buenrostro Sánchez, Secretary of Economy, Jorge Alcocer Varela, Secretary of Health, Lázaro Cárdenas Batel, Coordinator of Advisors to the President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz Reynoso, Ambassador of Mexico in Cuba and Layda Sansores San Román, Governor of Campeche.
For Cuba, it is made up of Bruno Rodríguez, Minister of Foreign Relations, Rodrigo Malmierca, head of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment; together with other heads of portfolios such as José Ángel Portal, of Public Health, and Josefina de la Caridad Vidal, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs.
In addition, Eduardo Martínez, president of BioCubaFarma, Eugenio Martínez, general director for Latin America and the Caribbean of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Marcos Rodríguez, ambassador to Mexico.
It is the fourth visit that the Cuban president has made to this country in the four years of President López Obrador’s government.
In this fifth meeting in Campeche, Díaz-Canel will be awarded the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle, in the degree of Collar, by President López Obrador. ef/oda/lma
