Claudia Sheinbaum announced on Wednesday that Martí Batres, the current head of the Government of Mexico City, will be the director of the Institute of Social Security and Services for State Workers (ISSSTE). The president-elect, who has spent the last few weeks announcing the next members of her cabinet, has expressed her gratitude to Batres: “I am happy and grateful that Martí is joining the team. He has a lot of work as head of government, but he will soon begin to integrate himself into all the tasks.” Until now, it was Bertha Alcalde, the sister of the federal Secretary of the Interior, Luisa María Alcalde, who was in charge of this health department.
When she left her position as head of government to run for president, Claudia Sheinbaum left Martí Batres in charge of the city. Since then, the politician has faced the capital’s management and some of its controversies, such as the scandal of the contaminated water in the Benito Juárez municipality, which his government closed and withheld information for three years. Batres is part of one of the founding families of Morena and her sister, Lenia Batres, was chosen by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador as a minister of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN).
Batres thanked Sheinbaum for the invitation and promised to fulfill all the tasks that there are during the next Government: “To continue contributing to a welfare state, a historic task that began with the 4T, which involves building the pillars that are health, education, work, housing and social security.”
The Mexican health system is fragmented according to each person’s employment status. For those working in the federal public sector, the main provider is ISSSTE, while the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) provides coverage to private sector employees. Zoé Robledo, who was appointed by López Obrador, will continue to be in charge of the latter. Meanwhile, last week, Sheinbaum announced Alejandro Svarch as the new director of IMSS-Bienestar, the public option for Mexicans who do not have access to other types of health care.
In Mexico, access to health care remains a privilege. The country has just 2.5 doctors per 1,000 inhabitants, well below the 3.7 recommended by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Protecting health with universal access and coverage has long been an aspiration in Mexico, a goal that the López Obrador government put on the table as soon as it took office in 2018.
Six years later and with an unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic, access to health services has not only not progressed, but has actually regressed for almost 30 million people, according to official figures. The promise of a health system like Denmark’s has remained rhetoric in the final stretch of this Administration and, on the contrary, some of the most latent problems in this area for two decades remain unresolved: staff shortages, hospitals without beds or equipment, specialist appointments with months-long waiting lines and a lack of medicines that must be covered by the patients themselves.
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