Merida, Yucatan, March 15, 2023.- With the objective that the vulnerable population has access to medical specialties and surgical interventions, the Merida City Hall and the Hospital Regional de Alta Especialidad de la Peninsula de Yucatan (HRAEPY) held the first Health Fair offering these services free of charge.
Mayor Renán Barrera Concha headed the event held in the Plaza Grande, where he was accompanied by Dr. Alfredo Medina Ocampo, general director of the HRAEPY; councilwoman María Fernanda Vivas Sierra, president of the Health and Ecology Commission; Ildefonso Machado Domínguez, director of Health and Social Welfare of the Mérida City Hall; and Dr. Jesús Tut Bojórquez, director of the medical area of the Regional High Specialty Hospital.
Barrera Concha stressed to medical personnel and users of the Health Fair that this collaborative work will promote the equal development and growth of society, especially the most vulnerable, by providing them with first level care, focused on the detection and attention of the most common pathologies that affect the population.
“With this joint effort, we are moving to a much higher level of specialization so that any medical issue that requires a very particular or special medical treatment no longer has to go through the bureaucratic route of managing, making the call, making the appointment or being seen, but here the doctors can provide these services as a single team,” he remarked.
He reminded that, although the health issue is not a direct responsibility of the City Council, the municipal administration collaborates in this task by establishing alliances with health institutions to focus on strategies that allow raising the quality of life of all the inhabitants of the Municipality.
“As we have been saying, the City Council does much more than change lights, build streets, remodel parks, but we also work to generate conditions that raise the quality of life of the population, as with these health fairs that have given very good results among the citizens,” he said.
He also recalled that the Medical Specialties Health Fair is the result of an agreement signed by the City Hall and the HRAEPY in February 2022 and valid until February 2024, which has allowed the attention of 67 cases in different specialties, from general surgery, to oncology, neurology, cardiology or rheumatology, among others.
Medina Ocampo recognized the Mayor’s work and commitment to promote a government close to the population, which translates into innovation and improvement of the programs and actions that the City Council implements in terms of prevention and health care.
“For the HRAEPY it is a commitment to bring health and, at this moment, we are working in synergy with the City Council of Merida so that this coverage is greater and more effective, before it was extraordinary that the third level or high specialty was in a forum like this, open and inclusive,” he said.
Machado Domínguez also informed that this shared responsibility will allow citizens who do not have access to an institutionalized medical assistance system such as IMSS or ISSSTE, to receive free attention in medical specialties such as general surgery, urology, ophthalmology, pediatric cardiology, cardiology, oncology, dentistry and mastography.
Finally, he said that the Fair is intended to be held periodically, in order to extend its benefits to a greater number of people living in neighborhoods, subdivisions and commissaries of the city, who find in the health fairs and medical centers of the City of Merida an important alternative to take care of their health.
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