The secretary of the General Health Council (CSG), José Ignacio Santos Preciado, presented his resignation from office on July 6 for “discrepancies of national impact with the Secretary of Health, Jorge Alcocer, in relation to the National Pharmaceutical Policy”, that is, with access and availability of medicines for the population, confirmed to Political Animal a source close to the topic.
In Mexico, this national policy does not yet exist. Last May, it was announced that the General Health Council would work on its elaboration, in its capacity as a health authority, and that it would design it in collaboration with the federal government, academia and the private sector.
This policy is designed to guarantee access in the national health system to safe, efficient, quality and cost-effective medicines. However, the discrepancies with the Secretary of Health, Jorge Alcocer, who chairs the council, leave Santos Preciado and his close team out of the process, whose members also presented their resignation today.
In addition to the general secretary of the CSG, Jorge Alberto Gómez Rodríguez, technical secretary, and César Alberto Cruz, in charge of Scientific and Technical Evaluation, also resigned.
On July 13, this new policy will be voted on in ordinary session, but Santos Preciado, Gómez Rodríguez and Cruz learned that they are not invited to the meeting. Therefore, they submitted their resignation, which is not yet accepted by the Secretary of Health.
Throughout this federal administration, the Ministry of Health has left out of important decisions and work the General Health Council, as when the health emergency began due to COVID-19 and it was not this body that met to decide the strategy to follow, as should have happened.
Since then, health authorities have reduced the council’s tasks and importance. Now, the resignations show discrepancies in a fundamental field such as the availability of medicines and their access for the population.
In addition, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador promised that as of December 1, 2020, all health services and medicines would be free for citizens, a promise that has not been fulfilled, since people without social security continue to have to pay for services and drugs.
The shortage of medicines due to the failures in the purchasing policy implemented by the federal administration, which has become more expensive and pulverized, as well as distribution, has also caused people with social security to suffer from the lack of medicines.
Read more: Drug shortages: why is the crisis continuing?
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