MEXICO CITY – Enjoying a full and lasting life cannot be the privilege of a few, warned President Enrique Peña Nieto.
Under that premise, government at all different levels should work to realize the constitutional mandate to guarantee a decent life for citizens, he said, because that this is the ethical backbone of public services.
“It is up to governments to bring the benefits of these advances to anyone who needs it, to achieve it demands the optimal use of public resources,” he said.
During the 35th General Assembly of the Mexican Health Foundation, the chief executive noted five strategies for government health to consider in first place advances in a Universal National Health System. He explained that to date the registration of members of the Popular Insurance exceeds 57 million people, that is average 4.5 million more than at the beginning of the administration.
Another strategy is to promote health prevention, improving care in vulnerable populations, ensure effective access to quality services to reduce waiting times and to promote international cooperation.
But among the challenges ahead, said the president, is to work to achieve universal quality of health care, and for that he instructed the Health Secretary, José Narro, to identify those who do not have medical services, review policies with attention to evaluating the results achieved, and to develop and implement a program aimed at improving the services offered by state governments in medical units implementing first level of care with an attention inpatient care and specialists.
In this objective, one of the key points is to optimize resources for determined for health services, Peña Nieto indicated.
“It is necessary to address and optimize the resources available to the state, and eventually find a way to find better financial mechanisms and financial support to achieve proper medical care to patients who need it,” he said.
The president said that the strategies implemented so far have yielded results. He gave the example that vaccination coverage reached 97.8 percent of one-year old children in measles, rubella and mumps in 2014.
Between 2012 and 2014, the infant mortality dropped 6.1 percent, maternal deaths have reduced and according to the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (Coneval) during this period exceeded 4.5 million Mexicans’ access to health services.