Presidency and Health take issue with superpharmacy | The universal

25 days before the president’s superpharmacy opens Andrés Manuel López Obrador, On December 30, as announced by the Secretary of Health, Jorge Alcocer, the agency he heads does not have data on the progress of the preparation to store “all the medicines in the world.”

Through a request for information, the Health Secretary (Ssa) also denied having knowledge of the appraisal or the amount that was paid for the purchase of the warehouse located in Huehuetoca, State of Mexico.

“[La información sobre la superfarmacia] “It is not the responsibility of this obligated subject, since the Biological and Reactive Laboratories of Mexico, SA de CV (Birmex), is in charge of having the requested information,” the agency stated.

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However, Birmex is a federal government company, coordinated by the Ministry of Health and directed by Major General Jens Peter Lohmann Iturbour.

The declaration of incompetence came after the head of the Ssa announced on November 21 that the 97 thousand square meter warehouse would be inaugurated on December 30 and offered details of its conditioning.

That day the official explained that the federal government made an initial payment, without specifying the amount, to acquire the complex that previously housed the department store’s supplies. Liverpool and which stopped operating last year, when it opened a 226 thousand square meter facility.

He explained that only approximately 20% of the equipment needed to store the medications that the federal government plans to purchase needed to be installed, which during the current administration has faced an intermittent shortage due to the continuous change in strategies to purchase and distribute them.

“It is a space widely used for other purposes, but in this case what was missing was only the refrigeration space for some medications, which is around 10% or 20%, but the rest is for rapid distribution. All the states are already located in that space and the exit through other means, such as, on occasions, small planes or airplanes, will certainly be very easy,” Alcocer assured.

For its part, in response to the same request, the Private Secretary of the President, through Juan Carlos Guerrero Torres, director of Legal Analysis and Document Management, also declared itself incompetent for not having the details of the project called superpharmacy proposed by the President as a solution to drug shortages.

“The obligated entities that may have information of interest are the Ministry of Health and the Mexican Institute of Social Security,” said the Office of the Presidency of the Republic.

When consulting the Secretary of National Defense (Sedena), it distanced itself and assured that the information on the progress of the conditioning of the superpharmacy and the purchase of medications that will be stored there is not its responsibility, but that of the Ssa.

“The information you request is not the responsibility of this secretariat, so it is suggested that you channel your request to the Transparency Unit of the Ministry of Health, considering it a matter within its competence,” specified Brigadier General Marco Antonio Gómez Nava. , head of the Sedena Transparency Unit.

The facilities of the mega-winery located in Huehuetoca are closed, with no federal surveillance or movement of government personnel or workers to support the president’s claim. Andrés Manuel López Obrador in the sense that “they are equipping themselves for all the medicines, refrigeration equipment, everything that is required.”

“In December we are going to inaugurate the large pharmacy that will have all the medications that are required, all the medications. That large pharmacy, that large warehouse, will have a communication and transportation system so that, if a medicine is missing in a community, in a town, in a municipality, in a state, it will be a health center, a hospital, In 24 hours you will have the medicine,” he said on November 21.

In fact, movement inside the warehouse ceased since last year, when the department store’s operations ended, said residents of the area consulted by EL UNIVERSAL in a tour carried out on November 24.

They pointed out that until that moment they had not seen any type of work being carried out inside, since it is easy to see because it is “half-buried” in a small geographical depression and the Santa Teresa neighborhood is above the installation.

This newspaper was also able to confirm that there are no elements of the Army, Navy or National Guard guarding the place, and it was only observed that two guards from a private security company guard the entrance of what will be the megapharmacy.

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