Mexico City / 18.07.2022 15:44:00
In rural and highly criminal areas, intern doctors have no security; In many cases, they risk their lives for 3,000 pesos a month, which they receive as a scholarship as part of their social service.assured the president of the Mexican Association of Physicians in Training (AMMEF), Cynthia Flores.
In an interview for MILLENNIUMFlores reported that Around 15,000 medical students carry out their social service in rural areaswho are not trained doctors and are almost always unaccompanied by a basic doctor to supervise them, which can cause them to make a mistake due to ignorance.
In addition, they have to carry out administrative and even maintenance tasks at the clinic where they carry out their internships.
“The communities, of course, have the right to maintain this right to health so that they can really see quality care, since it is covered by students.” I think the requests are very precise: security; that really the schools, the faculties of medicine make sure thate your students are going to their last stage to safe places, there are other ways of doing social service that include bonding positions, research positions and also the fact that if you are going to this type of place that really ensures that there is well-being, “explained Flores.
In this sense, the president of the Mexican Association of Physicians in Training made an called on students not to provide their social service in high-risk areasbecause neither the universities nor health institutions provide them with support in terms of safety.
Flores announced that they are looking for a social service reform to guarantee them a decent stay.
“A reform is being sought in social service, where the norms that are governed are constitutional, since there are many inconsistencies specifically with the Professions Lawall other professions with 480 hours release their social service, they have benefits where they have or they are supposed to be able to survive with that scholarship or maintenance and in the case of medicine it is not like that, it is a full year being there 24/7 time to be this attention, where the services have to be in safe areas and of course carry out this social service reform”, he mentioned.
For her part, the representative of the National Assembly of Medical Interns, Eva Pizzolato, pointed out that, although violence against medical interns is widespread in the most remote communities of the country, lCases of threats and sexual harassment have increased. In addition, there are no supplies in the clinics.
“There are threats to care for a person, sexual harassment inside the clinics by the population, violence, threats that they cannot go to the towns, lack of supplies, drinking water, electricity inside the clinics, of a house , that in breach of the Official Mexican Standard, then they send intern doctors to rural areas in conditions that are not optimal for the exercise of their profession and this puts them at risk in front of the populationsPizzolato mentioned.
Regarding the responsibility for the conditions of intern doctors, Pizzolato pointed out that The obligation to provide them with security corresponds both to the universitieshealth institutions as well as the federal and state governments.
“The health institution does not consider the intern doctor as its worker, so the responsibility falls on the university, that on paper, but the infrastructure of the clinics or health centers corresponds directly to the institutions and governments to maintain that attention,” he said.
For this reason, like the Mexican Association of Physicians in Training, they demand guarantees to be able to go to these communities safely, as well as intervention so that health centers and clinics in these places have the necessary supplies to care for patients.
“We are in a context in which is seeing the intern doctor or any intern in the health area, as cheap labor for the health sector, that is totally incorrect, the obligation to provide health to the population does not belong to the universities, it belongs to the government”, he concluded.
JLMR