Mexico started 2020 with a new public entity, the Institute of Health for Welfare (Insabi), an agency that, according to the government, intends to guarantee free and quality health services to the 69 million Mexicans who do not have access to social security.
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“Now public health, and especially the health of the most disadvantaged, will never be for profit or business of anyone. The public health of Mexicans and Mexicans now has its main promoter and defender in Insabi, ”said the head of the new organization, Juan Antonio Ferrer Aguilar, on Wednesday, announcing the start of the program.
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According to Ferrer Aguilar, this new institute, which replaced Popular Insurance, offer free care and medications for all conditions and diseases, including those that generate “catastrophic expenses, such as cancer or HIV and others that will add up.”
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Mexicans who until now were not enrolled in social security do not need to join or pay fees to receive medical care and medicines, explained the head of Insabi, explaining that, to access the new system, they must only present an identification document that can be:
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- The National Electoral Institute (INE) credential
- The Unique Population Registration Code (CURP)
- Birth certificate
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The creation of Insabi was announced on April 9 by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador as an “important step to fulfill the constitutional right to health.”
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Among Insabi’s plans is to gradually recover neglected clinics, health centers and hospitals and increase health personnel, as well as ensure that they strengthen primary care “with an emphasis on disease prevention and health promotion.”
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“Those who have a condition will be treated, but we will also seek to keep people healthy,” said Ferrer Aguilar.
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In that sense, the Secretary of Health, Jorge Alcocer, recently recognized that the system faces challenges such as population aging, climate change or the habits that are generated with new technologies and migration, so it would be necessary to reorient the Health system towards primary care.
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According to the Mexican government, the health sector will have a budget increase of 40,000 million pesos (about $ 2,109 million).
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