Even though the director of the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), Zoé Robledo, said in December 2021 that the new hospital being built on this border would serve the open population, the dependency -according to the Employers’ Confederation of the Mexican Republic (Coparmex) – informed the local private initiative in recent days that it would be only for beneficiaries.
Mario Cepeda, president of Coparmex in Juárez, told this outlet yesterday that Marcos Bucio, general secretary of the IMSS, assured him this at a meeting the week before, after the announcement of the transfer of functions of the Institute of Health for Well-being ( Insabi) to the IMSS-Welfare.
“(It will be) only for beneficiaries of Social Security; That was confirmed to us by the Secretary General, Marcos Bucio, last week, in a private meeting that was held in El Paso, Texas,” said Cepeda.
“The entire Social Security system will continue to serve only beneficiaries (…) Precisely, to an express question, ‘hey, the hospital?’ (He said that) ‘also,’ added the employer representative.
On December 10, 2021, in a presidential tour in which the start of the rescue of the hospital located in the area of the old galgódromo was announced here, Robledo said that “we are proposing it as a universal hospital, which can have both cares, to beneficiaries and for non-beneficiaries as well, with the IMSS-Well-being program”.
The state delegation of the IMSS did not respond yesterday to a request for information in this regard.
The representative in Chihuahua of the Ministry of Welfare, Juan Carlos Loera – who in recent days stated that the transfer of Insabi to IMSS-Welfare does not imply care in the Insurance properties for the open population – said yesterday that this could happen, but through agreements with the state government.
“This infrastructure that is being built belongs to the ordinary IMSS; Yes, it can serve the open population with prior agreement with the state government. In the event that the state government does not adhere, it could still serve the open population under two circumstances: one, that they make a collaboration agreement and the state government, since it has the money to serve the open population, it would subrogate some services to the IMSS, some services that only the IMSS could attend to,” said Loera.
“Now, in the event that the IMSS-Bienestar already operates in all of Chihuahua, and that the state government already removes that obligation, then the exact same thing would happen, but in federal institutions: the IMSS-Bienestar, which serves the open population, Well, it would already have all the infrastructure that the state government currently has and it could be the case for some care needs, which could also be in this hospital that is being built, or in any other, but after some collaboration and subrogation agreement between institutions,” he added.
Cepeda also said that the date provided by the Institute for the start of operations will be June 2024 -President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said in December 2021, on a tour of Juárez, that the work would conclude in December 2023-, for which they requested the schedule for contracting the equipment.
