In the last 25 years, there is evidence of improvement in the Mexican health care system, which has had a positive impact in the standard of living and the development of the country. However, the progress has been so slow; there is a lot to be done and needs to advance faster. As an example of medical gazette of Mexico[1] when they refer of countries with minor and greater inequality, they mention “This means that in almost half a century it was improved by 18%, which means that to reach the level that Denmark has today, it will take more than 100 years if something different is not done”.
According to the study “Measuring the health-related Sustainable Development Goals in 188 countries: a baseline analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015”[2] by the magazine The Lancet, Mexico has made a huge improvement in health in the last three decades. In that evaluation, they concluded that Mexico was placed in the second highest group.
September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly established the SDGs (Sustainable Developing Goals), which is an open, cooperative, and autonomous study to comprehensively measure epidemiological levels and trends of disease and risk factor burden worldwide. They recollected data from 1990 to 2015 and evaluated the indicators of the study in which, 33 were health-related. They established a new scale 0 to 100, with hundred being the highest. Some of the indicators were: maternal mortality ratio, modern contraception, neonatal mortality, under-5 mortality, elimination of diseases (e.g. tuberculosis, HIV, tropical diseases, etc.), reduction of health outcomes or risk to 0% (e.g. childhood overweight and partner violence), reaching 100% for intervention coverage or health service provision (e.g. competent birth attendance, modern contraception).
Being that said, Mexico indisputable has developed and advanced in the health sector. It has moved from position 104 in 1982 to position 69 now a days, out of 188 countries that participated in terms of Health Development and World Health Statistics 2011[3]. Mexico was able to improve in terms of public health in the last years.
In the presentation of the book “Ritmo y rumbo de la Salud de México”[4] by the Doctor Germán Fajardo Dolci (Director of the Faculty of Medicine UNAM), he talks with the last eight former secretaries who have taken office since 1982. They described and detail what have been the implementations to the progress in Mexico. The biggest historic changes and implementations mentioned are: the second major reform of the system, with the incorporation of the right to health protection in the 4th constitutional article, the beginning of the decentralization of health services, and the third major reform with the creation of the National System of Social Protection in Health and its operating arm, the “Seguro Popular”.
These three mentioned without minimizing some of the other achievements in each of the sexennial’s such as, attention to childhood (e.g. vaccination was one of the strongest ones), the culmination of decentralization, the consolidation of “Seguro popular”, or the steps taken towards the universalization of health services by the only woman that has been a former secretary of health Dr. Mercedes Juan, in which the actual secretary of health is continuing, among others.
As a result, the actual former in the office José Narro Robles, who has collaborated in three different times, 1999 being the last one; mentions he sees positive accomplishments. the first he mentions is Cofepris (a commission of federal order that has the responsibility of seeing the issue of health risks). As well, he mentions the big benefit of the creation of “Seguro popular”, the things that remind the same in a well-intentioned way. Such as the epidemiological surveillance system that gets better with the years, the national vaccination program that is stronger and constant, etc. As he also states, there is a lot to be done still.
One of the many themes to work on is the long-term solution of overweight, as it is not reached overnight, the solution would not be overnight either. There has to be a long-term, mid-term, and short-term to stop the epidemic (it is an epidemic when 7 out of 10 Mexicans are overweight or obese, when one out of three children/young Mexicans are overweight or obese). Long-term, solving it; mid-term, stopping it; short-term generating an awareness and actions to tackle the problem.
In conclusion, even though in the last decades there has been an improvement in the Mexican Health Sector, it is not enough work. We, as Mexicans cannot stand idly with these results, we need to work faster, keep proposing, promoting, developing, and researching for a healthier society that touches all its population. Aim objectives with tangible and visual solutions, as it is not an overnight task, always hold on to the health promotion, diseases prevention, and the quality of medical care.