In the ISSSTE, they do not serve devices to do studies and since 2019 the application to make appointments stopped working, so patients must go to train from dawn. There are no appointments available to process passports, which has led to the appearance of “managers” who charge 400 pesos extra to get a space. The pilots could not obtain licenses because the Secretariat of Infrastructure, Communications and Transport (SICT) did not have plastics to issue them; In addition, the app to request flight permits stopped working and the SICT stopped providing even registration forms.
These are just a few examples of the changes reported by citizens in the services they commonly use that have worsened during the current administration, according to testimonies collected by Political Animal.
Meanwhile, officials continue to point out lack of supplies in the INAH, double work to supply the tasks of their colleagues who were fired or retired in Pemex, new personnel without experience in public administration who do not solve procedures for citizens – such as the “servants of the nation” – resignation of highly specialized personnel due to the cut in benefits and lack of medicines at the Doctor Manuel Gea González Hospital.
All this, due to the “republican austerity” ordered by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at the beginning of his administration, which he boasts as an achievement but which has affected the government and worsened services to citizens.
Political Animal and the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO) conducted an investigation to know the impact of austerity applied since 2019, and found that the López Obrador government has spent more budget than that of Enrique Peña Nieto, but the former has made cuts in basic supplies and services that have affected the Executive and citizens.
It has also stopped investing in road maintenance, in the same period in which there was an increase in accidents and deaths; Investment in computer services has stopped and there have been hacks of strategic institutions, and the work of bureaucrats has been precarious in the current administration.
After the publication of these findings, some readers recounted the effects they have perceived in the services they frequently occupy.
At the ISSSTE Zaragoza Hospital, Diana’s mother presented a vesicular problem and spent a week without tasting food or water and only being fed with serum, because the study of endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) required fasting. Every day they told him they would do it, but they didn’t do it arguing equipment failures.
José Contreras, dermatologist and researcher at the National System of Researchers (SNI), stopped working at the Manuel Gea González Hospital because, as never before, there was no essentials to care for patients, nor could patients be asked for material to avoid administrative complaints. Medical and nursing staff simply could not do their job, so several specialists of the highest level have left the public service, says Contreras.
The ISSSTE application to make appointments stopped working at the beginning of the six-year term due to lack of budget, reported staff of the Family Medicine Unit of Valle de Aragón, where Manuel’s mother, a 67-year-old patient with diabetes, was treated. They told him that from then on he had to go at 5:00 in the morning to get a card and get an appointment.
“To date, my mom is no longer treated there, because it was getting up very early to go for one of the 40 chips they gave per day, and there were people who even stayed to sleep there to get one. Fortunately, my mother is a pensioner and was able to pay for private consultations and medicines on her own, and although they are quite expensive, the ISSSTE no longer provides them,” says Manuel.
When searching for the ISSSTE Mobile app in the application store, it does appear, but the only service it offers is “AsISSSTE Covid”, to locate patients infected with the virus, a function that supposedly helped to know the status of hospitalized people. However, there is no other procedure or service option in such an application.
Meanwhile, the application that served pilots to request flight authorization from Servicios a la Navegación en el Espacio Aérea Mexicano (Seneam) also stopped working in mid-2019, and now all registrations must be made in person and on paper, which increases the time for both the crew and the officials who must verify the information. says Fernando Hernández, a pilot with 22 years of experience.
Indeed, in the current six-year term the item “maintainSites and web pages and support for existing systems and programs” had a cut of 45%, going from one thousand 314 million pesos in 2018 to 718 million pesos in 2022; That is, government agencies had 595 million less to invest in this type of computer developments that provided a more efficient service to users.
The pilot Hernández also explains in an interview that the licenses with the inviolable security measures were not issued during 2020 and the SICT argued that it had no budget for plastics. During the pandemic, a period in which there was suspension of work due to health restrictions, the agency decided to extend the validity of the licenses, which also solved the lack of budget to issue them.
Also in the current administration, the SICT no longer delivers the flight plan forms, where all the data of each aircraft and its crew are recorded. Now they must download them from the page, print them and deliver them along with the rest of the copies of papers at each airport. In addition, they must carry a copy to deliver that same paperwork at the airport where you land, which denotes lack of communication between one and the other, since there should be registration for both since the flight is authorized, warns Hernández.
All this reflects the 76% cut in materials and supplies that the SICT had between 2018 and 2022.
Socorro Pinto tried for months to get an appointment for her children’s passport, in the office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nuevo León, without success. I tried in the mornings and early mornings and there was no availability on the page. He also searched the Coahuila office and nothing.
Other readers also reported unavailability of passport appointments; On Twitter, a company’s account responded to a comment and offered to get them.
Political Animal contacted this service and the person presented himself as a “manager”, whose service consists of “monitoring” the page all the time and getting an appointment, for a cost of 400 pesos; within minutes of contact, he offered an appointment for between December 12 and 16 at offices in Mexico City.
Jonathan has been trying to correct his vaccination certificate for a year, first online, then through the “servers of the nation”, the new officials hired by the Ministry of Welfare who walk through different neighborhoods to offer social programs or help in the procedures of those who are already beneficiaries. Neither with them nor in his health center has Jonathan been able to make the correction.
Officials
An INAH official, who asked not to publish her name for fear of reprisals, said in an interview that supervisors, architects and restorers cannot go to the areas where their work is required because they do not have the budget for travel expenses, vehicles and gasoline.
The institute is solving this through an agreement with the construction companies in charge of the works where there could be anthropological vestiges, such as the Mayan Train. Companies must pay for the services of supervisors and archaeologists to carry out the search, excavation and salvage of the areas. Although in this case, the company is the judge and party at the time of the archaeological findings.
Once archaeological pieces are found, you must notify INAH and the restorers begin the work. However, INAH only has 166 restaurant positions for the whole country, of which three remain vacant. In addition, sometimes to fulfill the work, officials come in their own vehicles, pay for gasoline and, in case of an accident, for example, also assume the costs of insurance.
For office work, explains the official, the computers have not been renewed for four years and the licenses of the programs were not paid, so some choose to break the locks, and others, like her, pay their own licenses.
In the case of the Ministry of Culture, on which INAH depends, the cut to materials and supplies, where computer services and vehicles and fuels are located, had a cut of 37% between 2018 and 2022.
In the Coatzacoalcos Administrative Center of Pemex, says another official, who also requested anonymity, the positions have not been filled either for retirements or vacations.
“In my case, I have been doing my own activities for a year plus those of two retired colleagues. A month ago, two unionized colleagues in my area fell ill for different reasons. This made me the only unionized worker to serve 37 trusted workers, some face-to-face and others remotely.”
Because of the stress, he says, he wears two s.You emanate experiencing high blood pressure, lack of sleep and excessive fatigue. “I mentioned my situation to the union, but the answer is to ‘hold on’ the austerity issue.”
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