Aitana’s death in an IMSS elevator highlights the cracks in Mexico’s public health system

Aitana was six years old and wanted to be a dancer. This Monday she was admitted to the Mexican Institute for Social Security (IMSS) Hospital No. 18 in Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, for a severe case of dengue. At around 10:30 p.m., the girl died in the elevator as she was being taken to another area of ​​the hospital on a stretcher. Apparently, the elevator began to go up before the stretcher carrying the patient was fully in, leaving her trapped under the pressure of the elevator and the wall. The company responsible for the elevators has completed 27 public contracts with the IMSS since 2019. The Attorney General of the Republic (FGR) announced this Friday that he was taking over the investigation into the death. His case has since revealed the serious deficiencies in Mexico’s public health system.

At Aitana’s funeral in Tinum, a small town in the Yucatán, her schoolmates loudly called out her name. The girl’s death has shaken the country and highlighted the precariousness of public hospitals. The institution, led by Zoe Robledo, denied responsibility for the event, referring to the company in charge of maintenance, Soluciones Integrales de Transportación Vertical en México (Sitravem). However, some IMSS 18 staff have given assurances that the elevators have been out of action for years. The hospital has temporarily relieved those responsible for maintenance from their posts while the investigation continues.

Zoé Robledo in Mexico City, on June 20th.Zoé Robledo on June 20 in Mexico City. Luis Barron (Getty Images)

The director of IMSS explained that errors in the operation of the elevator had been reported a few hours before the death. “A technician from this company came to the hospital at 4:00 p.m. This technician departed at 5:43pm without leaving any notice, no restrictive signage to use the elevator due to a malfunction,” explained Robledo, who announced that IMSS had filed a criminal complaint against the company. “Our commitment is focused on ensuring that investigations are carried out in a timely and transparent manner so that there is no impunity. And also in reviewing and perfecting all procedures to ensure an event like this never happens again,” he added.

Sitravem is a company founded in 2018 that has since won 27 IMSS elevator maintenance contracts worth more than 31 million pesos (about $1.8 million). The company received its first public order just a few months after it was founded: From January to December 2019, it was about 3.2 million pesos for equipping hospitals in Mexico City, as this newspaper was able to review. The submission took place as part of the so-called three-way invitation, a process in which the institution conducts a market study and invites three suppliers to compete and present their proposals. A large number of these services were contracted for Jalisco’s IMSS, ranging from 2.7 million pesos in 2021 to 4.3 million pesos in various contracts in 2022. Sitravem was also a provider in Durango, Aguascalientes or Puebla. The company has yet to comment and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has pledged that an investigation will be launched.

Following Aitana’s death, it is not the first time that IMSS hospitals have been linked to supply problems of all kinds and facilities in a deplorable condition. A few months ago, IMSS staff at Subzone Number 33 General Hospital in San Andrés Tuxtla, Veracruz, used their cell phones to record how the hospital was being flooded by torrential rain and patients had to be relocated. For example, the lack of backup power plants resulted in the death of 16 patients at the Tula de Allende IMSS in Hidalgo in 2021 when the river burst its banks and the first floors of the hospital, including the sickroom, were flooded. Amid the Covid pandemic, 16 patients who were on a ventilator due to complications of the disease died within hours without anyone being able to save them.

In April of that year, Mexico City’s Siglo XXI Medical Center, one of the IMSS’s crown jewels in the country, was also at the center of the controversy when a group of doctors had to abandon a procedure in the middle of the hospital’s operating room because the ceiling was full of worms, affecting the patient they were operating on.

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