Mario Luis Fuentes
The National Institute of Geography and Statistics (INEGI) has published preliminary statistics on deaths recorded in 2023. Like every year, this count reflects a tragedy that is now permanent and in the face of which the Mexican state has failed to reform its government to reduce preventable deaths throughout the country.
This is about much more than just having a universal health care system that provides quality and warm services to all Mexicans, which is a necessary condition for achieving the stated goal, but not sufficient, since people become seriously ill and die mainly from causes related to social and environmental factors.
For example, child mortality remains associated with factors such as poverty, the age of mothers, the educational level of parents, as well as a set of factors that characterize an environment in which the most basic services are an unattainable luxury for these people because there is no proper toilet, There is not enough water, not to mention supplements such as folic acid and other micronutrients, but there is enough safe daily food so that girls and boys can enter the world in optimal conditions.
In the same situation, we can talk about maternal mortality, which has increased under the current administration, which represents an unacceptable regression when viewed from a human rights perspective; Indeed, maternal mortality is concentrated both among populations experiencing higher levels of poverty and marginalization and among groups of young women whose sociodemographic characteristics reflect greater disadvantage.
The case of girls and boys dying from vaccine-preventable causes is no different; and women dying from preventable causes caused by certain types of cancer, such as breast and cervical cancer, which are associated with factors of poverty, inequality, marginalization, educational underdevelopment, malnutrition, among others.
What is observed in the case of violent and accidental deaths is that we continue to maintain a mortality rate that is both unacceptable and unsustainable, because if we did, we would continue to be an intolerable and hostile country for a civilized and democratic society in which violence and terror are considered part of everyday reality and structural elements of our life system.
The mortality statistics we have show us not the failure of the health system, but the institutional breakdown of its ability to guarantee the minimum acceptable in a constitutional system in which the fundamental mandate of the state is the full guarantee of human rights. , which is based on economic, social, cultural and environmental rights.
In the three years from 2020 to 2022, just over three million people died. This is very painful; That’s a lot of sadness, centered in an area where, although we are returning to statistically expected trends, we were already starting from a trajectory of tens of thousands of people who died much sooner than they should have.
It is important to understand that even if we had a robust health care system capable of caring for all people, we would still have tens of thousands of preventable or excessively preventable deaths. Because drug use, both legal and illegal, will continue; because malnutrition will continue to be a feature in much of the country; because insufficient services will not be solved; and because ending violence will mean much more than just having enough clinics and clinics for a population of more than 130 million people.
The ongoing election process is an opportunity that cannot be missed to advance the national dialogue about how we are going to ensure that people stop dying both unnecessarily and prematurely, because we all have the right to live as long as possible. in the best possible conditions.
In this sense, INEGI data also shows the fact that millions of people are losing years of healthy life; and this means living with pain, with physical limitations, in many cases with loss of functionality of some vital organs or limbs and senses such as vision; and in a growing number of amputations that have already changed the epidemiology and characteristics of disability in the country.
From this perspective, we should be clear that these conditions and trends also imply a change in the urban environment, which is already hostile to the majority of the population, but will become even more hostile as it registers an accelerating aging population. trends and epidemiological transition; Because even if there were radical changes in the ability to diagnose and treat conditions such as diabetes and hypertension, what we already have today involves years of specialized services for those diagnosed and for those who, while already ill, still doesn’t know his condition. state.
Therefore, it is necessary, first of all, for the country to realize that our highest priority is to radically transform the mortality structure, which involves changing trends in the burden of disease, recognizing that this is the task of the entire government, and not just the health sector, which, without a doubt, as the first step must be deeply reformed and rebuilt.
Researcher at PUED-UNAM
Source: Aristegui Noticias

John Cameron is a journalist at The Nation View specializing in world news and current events, particularly in international politics and diplomacy. With expertise in international relations, he covers a range of topics including conflicts, politics and economic trends.