- The IMSS was founded on January 19, 1943 by then President Manuel Ávila Camacho.
- It currently has 531 Family Medicine Units, 251 General Hospitals and 25 highly specialized medical units.
- Although the dream of many doctors and nurses is to get a position or be a base worker at the IMSS, there is also a dark side to the institution.
Within the field of health there are different paths available to work, although in the end there are two main options. It is about the public and private sector and each one has positive aspects and other adverse ones. Among the first stands out the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) for being the largest of its kind in the country, although it is also often criticized for the working life of its employees.
The basis of public health in Mexico
With respect to its work, it is the decentralized agency of the federal government that is dedicated to providing health and social security services to beneficiaries. It currently has just over 60 million members and each year the number increases.
It was founded on January 19, 1943 by decree of then President Manuel Ávila Camacho. Since then it has overcome all kinds of problems like wars, floods, fires and pandemics. Although he is still standing, his present looks complicated because the staff is not enough to care for so many patients.
About your infrastructure, it has 531 Family Medicine Units, 251 General Hospitals and 25 highly specialized medical units. In addition, 34 outpatient care and 10 detection and diagnosis of breast cancer.
It also manages 16 eye care centers, 18,774 offices, 1,119 operating rooms, 56,753 beds, of which 35,802 are censusable, 19,18 non-censusable, and 1,933 for intensive care.
One of the reasons doctors, nurses, and other health professionals want to join Social Security is because it is considered a stable source. The dream of many is to get a job or be a base worker, but is it really worth it?
Work life cycle in the IMSS
Despite all its virtues, there is also a dark side to the IMSS and it affects not only patients but also collaborators. It’s about bureaucracy and signs of internal corruption.
Similarly, another of the biggest disadvantages is that there is not enough staff. As a consequence, waiting rooms always look crowded and this causes patients to despair because they are not attended to immediately.
With regard to doctors, it is quite likely to develop stress and fatigue from all the activities that must be carried out. In the end all the factors are combined to develop the Burnout syndrome.
With this in mind, there is a meme that is not necessarily a joke but can hide a great truth. This is the IMSS labor life cycle where all the mentioned stages appear. But in the case of doctors who manage to stand out and try to be different from the rest, the result is not entirely favorable.
— 🐹Tropical Psycho Hamster 🌴 (@DraMaRoPalher) July 22, 2022
For this type of case there is also a strong disappointment because in reality they cannot always be promoted through their own merits. For this reason, workers often leave the IMSS and venture into the private sector or open their own practice.
For now, do you consider that this is really the cycle of working life within the IMSS?
Also read:
The health events of January: From the National IMSS Day to the Fight Against Depression
All the negative aspects of being a doctor at the IMSS and ISSSTE
IMSS opens massive recruitment for doctors and nurses: Offers 38 thousand pesos per month