As a health professional you know that you have various responsibilities in your daily life. The main one and which is established in the Hippocratic Oath is never to harm the patient. Although most comply with this indication, there are also some who are a bad example for the entire union. While the cases of doctors who make the mistake of prescribing the wrong drugs have increased in recent months.
This was indicated by the Undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion, Hugo López-Gatell Ramírez. He said that the COVID-19 pandemic has left our country with important lessons such as the need to have a resilient public health system, with high universal coverage and that functions in a harmonious way.
Private health has not done a correct job during the pandemic
At the head of the virtual presentation of the results of the National Health and Nutrition Survey (Ensanut) 2020 on COVID-19, coordinated by the National Institute of Public Health (INSP), he pointed out that private services did not solve the need for care, since Although they absorbed a part of the demand, it was not hospitable.
He indicated that the medical care was provided in small one-person clinics, adjacent to pharmacies and diagnostic laboratories that were converted into care units.
The consequence was a serious deformation in terms of quality and timeliness of medical care. He added that on many occasions they gave a suboptimal diagnosis, while many doctors in this sector focused on prescribing the wrong and unnecessary drugs such as antibiotics, steroids, anti-inflammatories and anticoagulants.
He said that this meant a delay in the care of patients, who, by taking non-useful medications, presented complications and decided to go to the public health services in adverse conditions, when the disease had caused serious complications.
“Once again it is clear that social inequality is harmful to health. Mexico is an extremely unequal country: 60 percent of the population lives in conditions of poverty, and when facing a health crisis the economic and social situation is affected ”.
Objectives of the Ensanut on COVID-19
He highlighted the value of the Ensanut COVID-19, as it is a periodic evaluation instrument that allows establishing, guiding and reviewing public policies in accordance with scientific evidence.
He indicated that the INSP has accompanied the process of planning, developing and implementing the management of the epidemic, in addition to the fact that several of its researchers are part of the Technical Advisory Group on Vaccination and the inter-institutional group for estimating excess mortality.
The general director of the INSP, Juan Rivera Dommarco, detailed that the Ensanut 2020, held between August and November 2020, analyzes the seroprevalence of antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the population of all ages, the use of health services , compliance with isolation recommendations, as well as excessive alcohol consumption and its association with individual, family and social factors, among other items.
He reported that among the results stands out the increase in demand for private care, which resulted in an increase in people’s out-of-pocket expenses.
The director of the Center for Research on Infectious Diseases of the INSP, Celia Alpuche Aranda, said that the study of COVID-19 in families consisted of taking blood samples from members of 8,749 households, representing 5.5 million households .
For now, if you want to know the results of the 2020 Ensanut on COVID-19 you can do it at this link.