President Sheinbaum laid the cornerstone at the inaugural ceremony on Sunday of a new IMSS general hospital in the Oaxaca municipality of San Lorenzo Cacaotepec, part of a three-facility complex that the administration sees as a key step forward in its plan for a Universal Health Service (SUS) in Mexico.
In addition to the IMSS (Mexican Social Security Institute) hospital, an ISSSTE (Institute for Social Security and Services for State Workers) hospital is under construction on the same site, and there are plans for an IMSS-Bienestar (IMSS-Welfare) facility.
The new complex, located just 15 kilometers outside of the city of Oaxaca, is known as Ñuu Tata in the local Mixtec language, Ciudad de la Salud in Spanish and Health City in English.
“It will be an example not only for Oaxaca, but for the entire world, because it will have the most modern services available… giving the people of Oaxaca the true right to health,” said Sheinbaum.
Injecting some politics into the occasion, the president said that before her party came to power in 2018, health care was seen as a profit-making enterprise, rather than the universal right that it is considered to be now. The president claimed that during the previous 36-year neoliberal period in Mexico, only 4,000 hospital beds were added, while during her six-year term she aims to add 9,000.
Enrollment in Mexico’s SUS system started in April, and 2 million senior citizens have already enrolled, according to Sheinbaum. “Our vision is for these three [Health City] institutions to form part of . . . the Universal Health Service in Mexico,” she said.
Sheinbaum’s government plans to provide free medications at the three institutions, as well as invest in improving and expanding primary healthcare countrywide.
IMSS Director General Zoé Robledo said that the new Oaxaca hospital will serve almost 1 million beneficiaries and employ 2,826 staff. It will have 530 beds — 260 for hospitalization and 270 for emergency care, 53 consulting rooms and will be equipped with adult, neonatal and pediatric intensive care units.
Meanwhile, ISSSTE Director Martí Batres said the government plans to invest 3.5 billion pesos (US $203 million) in the new general hospital, which began construction in August last year and is now 62% complete.
“We are going to finish this major project in record time,” said Batres.
The ISSSTE hospital will be equipped with 508 beds, a helipad, 43 consulting rooms, 11 operating rooms and will have 36 specialized medical services.
Investment in the three hospitals is expected to total 10 billion pesos (almost US $580 million).
With reports from La Jornada and 24-Hours
