50.4 million Mexicans without health services, says Coneval

In Mexico, 50.4 million people lack access to health services, which represents 39.1 percent of the population, said Alida Marcela Gutiérrez Landeros, general coordinator of poverty analysis at the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (Coneval).

By participating in the UNAM-Coneval Chair, Conference on poverty, evaluation, monitoring and administrative managementThe official explained that the shortage increased compared to 2018, when the six-year term began.

In that year, 20.1 million people lacked access to health services, which represented 16.2 percent of the population that year.

Gutiérrez explained that Seguro Popular disappeared in 2018 and that the Institute of Health for Wellbeing (Insabi) is currently in operation, which is a decentralized organization attached to the Ministry of Health.

Since Seguro Popular, there was an official discourse: it is universal, for all people who do not have access linked to their work; even so, we are seeing that 38 percent continue to report that they do not have access to health services.the speaker stressed.

He explained that as for IMSS-Bienestar – an entity that since May 2023 provides free health services, medicines and other associated supplies to people without social security – only 0.2 percent of the population is affiliated.

He commented that the pandemic prevented the operation of Insabi and that there has been a considerable increase in the number of people who tend to go to clinics adjacent to pharmacies, which is not considered access to health.

The lack of access to medical services is part of the six conditions that Coneval takes into account to measure multidimensional poverty: educational backwardness, access to social security, housing, basic services and nutritious and quality food.

Coneval makes its estimates based on the National Household Income and Expenditure Survey, whose most recent data is from 2022.

On the other hand, Gutiérrez Landeros recalled that only 28 percent of the population “is neither poor nor vulnerable.

All others (72 percent) are in poverty or are vulnerable due to social or income deprivation.he commented.

The group’s income not poor and not vulnerable They are eight times higher than those of the extremely poor.

He detailed that around 9.1 million people were in extreme poverty in 2022 and that seven out of 10 indigenous language-speaking women in rural areas are in poverty, as published by The Day 19/08/24 ( https://www.jornada.com.mx/noticia/2024/08/19/politica/coneval-en-pobreza-7-de-cada-10-hablantes-de-lengua-indigena-2283 )

In turn, three out of 10 non-indigenous-language-speaking men living in urban areas are in poverty. One of the greatest deficiencies in the poor group is in housing, which is overcrowded.