Virus hits Mexico’s health workers hard

As the whole world is sick due to COVID-19, it is high time to rethink our actions. On this world environment day, we must hear the alarm from nature, introspect our actions, and correct them before its too late. When the coronavirus epidemic began to intensify in Mexico at the end of March, Doctor Jose Garcia said his bosses at a public trauma hospital in Mexico City denied his request for masks, gloves and disinfectant.

They argued such protective equipment was only necessary for those working directly with coronavirus patients, Garcia said. Unconvinced, he bought it himself. The hospital’s director disputes this, saying all staff received protective equipment. Either way, Garcia had already contracted the virus and infected his wife and one-year-old daughter.

Garcia is one of over 70,000 medical workers to catch the coronavirus in Mexico, where the pandemic death toll is now the third-highest worldwide, behind the United States and Brazil.

Government data indicates that healthcare workers’ risk of dying is four times higher than in the United States, and eight times higher than in Brazil.

In Mexico, 19 per cent of confirmed infections are of medical staff, almost three times the global average. The plight of health workers is complicating efforts to contain the outbreak, which has killed close to 50,000 people in Mexico, battered the economy and cost millions of jobs.

As of July 24, 72,980 Mexican medical staff had caught the coronavirus, and 978 died, government figures show.

In the United States, which has a population 2.5 times that of Mexico, 123,738 medical personnel have tested positive for coronavirus and 598 have died, according to the most recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) figures.

The health ministry of Brazil, which is about twothirds more populous than Mexico, had reported 189 deaths of medical practitioners by end-july. Some private data in Brazil give higher figures, but still well below Mexico.

Many have protested about having to reuse disposable gear and launched petitions for better kit.

Mexico’s spending on health as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) is one of the lowest in the 37-member Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). More than 600 nurses had died by the end of June in some 30 countries surveyed by the Geneva-based International Council of Nurses. Mexico accounted for 160 of the deaths, or over a quarter. — Reuters