Mexico Acquires Privatized Hospitals to Boost Health Infrastructure
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador confirmed that the Government of Mexico purchased nine out of 12 hospitals that were previously privatized under Public-Private Partnership (PPP) schemes during previous administrations. These arrangements had been detrimental to the public treasury due to costly annual rents established in contracts lasting over 20 years, said the president during his June 19th morning press conference.
In a morning press conference, he explained that the federal government prioritized dialogue and agreements with the business owners, who accepted the acquisition proposal and the appraisal of the properties conducted by the Institute of Administration and Appraisals of National Assets (INDAABIN).
“We are going to buy nine hospitals, all those that were contracted in this manner; nine will be paid off, and they will be recovered. (…) I want to thank the business owners of these health services because they accepted the agreements; they understood that these are different times, we did not engage in conflict, we did not expropriate, and they were open to reaching an agreement. (…) We must acknowledge this because if we had gone into a dispute, it would have taken a long time, and we wouldn’t have resolved anything. This was the best solution, an agreement,” the president emphasized.
He highlighted that the operation aims to return privatized assets to the people of Mexico, reversing 36 years of neoliberal privatization. This nationalization process will benefit IMSS Bienestar, the Institute for Security and Social Services for State Workers (ISSSTE), and the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS).
The president stated that under the PPP model, “profits were privatized, and losses were socialized.”
ISSSTE’s Director General, Bertha María Alcalde Luján, specified that the agency oversees four of the nine hospitals privatized to private entities. The company PRODEMEX has already signed the first purchase agreement for the Dr. Daniel Gurría Urgell General Hospital in Tabasco.
Negotiations continue with companies GIA, Sacyr, and INVEX/Grupo Ortíz for the Mérida Clinic Hospital in Yucatán, the Tláhuac General Hospital in Mexico City, and the Aquiles Calles Ramírez General Hospital in Nayarit.
Regarding the ISSSTE recovery project, the president highlighted that the Fourth Transformation Government is reversing the conditions of decay and plundering from the neoliberal period that affected the institute. He reiterated that basic services such as stretchers, ambulances, and laboratories were silently privatized through various corruption networks involving politicians, directors, and high-ranking officials of the institution.
“Imagine the situation we were in; we had to ask the Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection (Rosa Icela Rodríguez Velázquez) to help us coordinate efforts to clean up and recover, to rescue ISSSTE,” he said.
President López Obrador emphasized that federal health institutions are consolidating coordination and integration agreements for primary care services and treatment of heart attacks, diabetes, cancer, and emergencies to ensure that both insured individuals and those without social security can access their right to health.
With this measure, he said, if an ISSSTE beneficiary lives in a remote community like La Montaña de Guerrero, they will be able to go to one of the more than 11,000 IMSS Bienestar or regular IMSS clinics.
Soledad Quartucci | CEO/Founder, Latina Republic
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