The need for more
It comes as no surprise that COVID-19 has been the number-one focus of Mexico’s health apparatus over the last year—as of May 2021, Mexico has suffered the fourth-highest death toll in the world.
As the scale of the pandemic emerged, hospitals rushed to restructure their operations and expand capacity, and as 2021 ground on they ramped up their vaccination operations.
But as the health system struggles to keep up with unpredictable spikes in admittances, many figures across the sector worry about the costs inflicted on those with chronic and life-threatening diseases yet unable to access healthcare. Melissa Rosales, Founder & General Director of RM Pharma, told The Business Year the development of new drugs is being delayed as regulatory body COFEPRIS prioritizes COVID-19 protocols, and pharmaceutical companies have had to reorganize their priorities. She cautioned that the sector should not focus entirely on COVID-19, lest patients suffering from diseases such as cancer suffer unnecessarily.
Meanwhile, the public health sector is taking advantage of the issues being raised by the current health crisis as an opportunity to improve the quality of their services. Luis Antonio Ramírez Pineda, Director General of the Institute of State Workers Social Security and Social Services (ISSSTE), Mexico’s second-largest social security institution, which serves 13.5 million people, explained to The Business Year how big a challenge COVID-19 has been for the Mexican public health system. “Obviously, no health system in the world was fully prepared to face this pandemic, but clearly we must consolidate a health system fully grounded in the idea of education for a healthy life, and in prevention,” he noted, adding, “the epidemic also showed the need for proper coordination among health institutions in the country and updating facilities all over the territory.”
This chapter, while covering the impact of COVID-19, also seeks to highlight the many opportunities in the market and to close the gaps in secondary and rural regions that have limited access to healthcare. Hospitales Mac, for example, has a plan to build 15 hospitals over the next 15 years. “We like to focus on secondary cities that require hospital infrastructure and where we have the capability to build a hospital from scratch,” said Miguel Isaac Khoury Siman, CEO & Chairman of the Board. “Most of these secondary cities in our country have outdated or no hospitals at all; we aim to change that with modern more equipped hospitals for these regions,” he concluded.