“We want to thank the Cuban people and Government because they are helping us by sending specialists that we do not have in our country”

Mexico City, July 2 (RHC)-- Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Tuesday reaffirmed his gratitude to the people and Government of Cuba for sending doctors to his country.

“We want to thank the Cuban people and Government because they are helping us by sending specialists that we do not have in our country,” the president assured at his regular press conference.

The head of State recalled that the neoliberal policy prevailing in Mexico for decades abandoned public education, especially at the higher level, and young people who wanted to study medicine were rejected on the pretext that they did not pass the entrance exam.

“The truth is that there was not enough budget and thousands were rejected. In the end, the result is that we do not have the specialists that the country requires,” Lopez Obrador stressed, stating that in this eagerness to privatize, the nation was left without the possibility of having more doctors.

We have been soaring the number of scholarships for these professionals and we are going to leave some 200 regional medical universities. However, these is not enough and that is why the Cuban Government is helping us, he added.

According to AMLO, at the beginning of his term he visited several hospitals that have been affiliated to the IMSS-Bienestar program for the federalization of healthcare services for people without social security, about half of the population, and he found that there was a shortage of specialists.

“We want to be able to raise white flags in the states in September and say, there is a 100-percent supply of medicines, we already have general practitioners, we already have specialists. It is quite a challenge. And it is not Denmark, it is going to be better, because we have been working for a long time”, the president announced. (Source: Prensa Latina)