Federations, associations and medical colleges expressed their “deep disapproval” the federal government for hiring foreign doctors, arguing that in our country there are trained professionals with poor working conditions.
In a public statement signed by leaders of trade organizations that cover various specialties and sectors, the professionals presented their “strong protest” following the federal government signed an agreement with Cuba to hire 500 Cuban doctors. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that in our country there is a “deficit” of health professionals.
In our country there are doctors with capacity endorsed by the Universities of the Mexican Republic, trained in full knowledge of the needs and idiosyncrasies of our population, some of them unemployed or eventually employed with very low salaries or in areas of extreme insecurity.
The professionals claim that during the Covid pandemic they had to work in harsh conditions and, in many cases, they had to buy their own protective equipment to avoid contagion, which is why they consider it unfair that they are relegated to new hires.
It is a grievance for the Mexican medical union since these foreign doctors do not meet the required skills, do not have duly specified functions, do not have the requirements established by current laws, as well as lack the endorsement of professional associations.
The doctors affirm that the intervention of foreign professionals “has not represented benefit for the care of our population and if it is a serious inequity for the doctors of our country.”
The statement is signed by 30 leaders of schools, associations and federations from various branches of the health sector, from Internal Medicine to specialties such as Neurosurgery, Orthopedics, Radiology, among others.
In line with this statement, Germán Fajardo Dolci, director of the UNAM School of Medicine, tweeted that Mexico produces very good and enough male and female doctors, “better conditions are urgently needed in medical internships, social service and decent work for general practitioners. We don’t need to import doctors.”