The five Regional High Specialty Hospitals (HRAE) in the country and the Regional High Specialty Center (CRAE) in Chiapas will become part of IMSS-Bienestar, with the aim of speeding up the access of people without social security to the treatment of complex and high-cost diseases.
The administrative structure that, until now, has been under the responsibility of the Coordinating Commission of the National Health Institutes and High Specialty Hospitals has already been transferred to the new health scheme.
This decision includes the Hospital Regional de Alta Especialidad de Yucatán (Hraepy), located in the Altabrisa neighborhood in the north of Mérida.
These hospitals were created in 2006 with the aim of expanding the federal response capacity at the third level of care and as part of the offer of the now defunct Seguro Popular to achieve universal health coverage, “but the reality is that patients had to go through a complicated and bureaucratic process to gain admittance,” commented sector officials.
The announcement of the disincorporation of the HRAE and the CRAE from the Ministry of Health (SSA) and the merger with IMSS-Bienestar was announced with the presidential decree published in the Official Gazette of the Federation.
Among the HRAE are three public-private partnerships (APP), built and managed by private companies through contracts that will be in force for 25 years, of which there are still seven years left for the HRAE del Bajío, in Guanajuato; nine for the one in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas; and 11 for the one located in Ixtapaluca, State of Mexico.
They are included in the group of nine hospitals that the federal government intends to acquire, in order to stop paying annual rents of 354, 531, and 622 million pesos, respectively.
The other HRAE, federally owned, which also pass to IMSS-Bienestar are in Oaxaca and the CRAE in Chiapas.
The decree states that the transfer of human, budgetary, financial, and material resources to the decentralized public agency IMSS-Bienestar will be the responsibility of the authorities of each hospital.
With the merger, IMSS-Bienestar will assume the functions and obligations of each hospital unit. With respect to the workers, the decree states that they will retain their labor rights in accordance with the applicable legislation and regulations.
The measure becomes effective this Thursday, October 12 and it was also established that the SSA, together with IMSS-Bienestar, will prepare the Strategic Plan project, with the steps, stages, and times required to complete the process of disincorporation (of the SSA) and merger (with IMSS-Bienestar) of the hospitals and the regional high specialty center.
The project will be submitted to the evaluation and agreement of the Inter-Secretarial Commission of Public Spending, Financing, and Disincorporation within 30 calendar days starting tomorrow.
The hospitals are decentralized agencies of the federal public administration, with legal personality that they will keep until their merger with IMSS Bienestar is formalized.
TYT Newsroom
