This Monday, January 10, around 800 people line up on the esplanade of the La Raza Medical Center of the IMSS, to be given an appointment for a specialty consultation. In the midst of the rebound of the fourth wave of COVID-19 in Mexico, all these people have been in a health institution for more than five hours.
Alma Valadez says that she was told since December 19 that the appointment schedule for 2022 had not been opened and that she was calling or that it was. “Later they told me to go around on January 10, but that’s what they told many, that’s why we’re here,” he tells Political Animal, from the line, which is rather agglomeration, on the esplanade of the La Raza Medical Center.
The 37-year-old woman seeking an appointment with the endocrinologist says she arrived at 8 a.m. and trained outside La Raza Medical Center. “I was trained outside for about an hour, until nine o’clock, then I went in, and I found this, that we are in line, if you can call it that, about 800 people. There is no order, there is no healthy distance, no one comes out to tell us anything. Only a while ago a doctor came out, looking for urology patients, she tried to put a little order, but no one else, “says Alma.
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Mrs. Juana Sánchez says that her last appointment with the specialist was on November 2, 2021 and since then she is told that the agenda has not been opened. “They told us that for January 10, but it is a crowd, I come to hematology and I come from the border between the State of Mexico and Hidalgo, I make two hours of travel from there to here, I have a severe osteoarthritis that prevents me from being standing for so long.”
Pamela Mata is seeking an appointment in pediatric cardiology for her five-year-old son. She got the last appointment on September 6 and since then they tell her the same as the rest, that there was no open agenda, until this January 10.
At 1 p.m., Alma Valadez says that they have already distributed chips and that there are those who have the number 876. “There is someone with a loudspeaker who is already saying that those who do not have a number will be attended until tomorrow.”
Political Animal asked the IMSS, through its communication office, why no appointments have been given for 2022 and why it is not expected that there will be no such agglomerations, but at the close of this note there was no response.
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