The death of Aitana Betzabé Domínguez, 6, pressed by an elevator in a hospital in the IMSS in Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, has shocked millions. It is unacceptable for a patient to lose their life in a hospital because an elevator is not working. The only person initially arrested, for manslaughter, was the orderly, Víctor F, who was released yesterday. Meanwhile, the company in charge of maintenance “does not answer.”
Yesterday on the radio, with Guadalupe Juárez, I interviewed Dr. Enrique Leobardo Ureña Bogarín, head of the administrative operation body of the IMSS in Quintana Roo, who had only been in office for 11 days. He said that “there is control, there is maintenance, there is budgetary support.” The elevator underwent maintenance that same day.
The representatives of the company in charge, however, “have not responded.” That is why a complaint was filed against her. The firm, she added, won the contract in an “international public tender” in February 2023.
A person from my production called the company, Integral Vertical Transportation Solutions in Mexico, Sitravem, but no one answered. The journalist Alfredo Álvarez reported on Twitter that it is a facade. “It was created in 2018 when Morena came to power, he has no experience managing elevators.” The fiscal direction “is a black work. It has not been a winner of the tenders. Not only does he have million-dollar contracts with the IMSS”, but also with the Metro and the Light Train of Mexico City.
President López Obrador promised yesterday an investigation and punishment of those responsible. “There can be no impunity,” he said. “It’s not blaming for blaming… It has to be the one who is really responsible.”
I agree: this is not the time to buzz. We cannot forget, however, that López Obrador demanded in 2017 the dismissal of Gerardo Ruiz Esparza, secretary of communications, for the sinkhole of the Cuernavaca express crossing, which left two dead. Today it would be like demanding the resignation of Zoé Robledo, general director of the IMSS, for the death of this little girl or that of Florencia Serranía, the then director of the capital’s Metro, due to the collapse of Line 12 of the Metro, which left 26 dead in 2021. Minister Arturo Zaldívar tried to establish this level of responsibility in his 2010 project on the tragedy of the ABC nursery in Hermosillo, in which he blamed the director of the IMSSJuan Molinar Horcasitas, but the plenary session of the Court rejected it.
We must punish officials who commit misdemeanors that cause accidents, but satisfying a spirit of political revenge is not justice. If the CEO of the IMSS he had irresponsibly cut the maintenance budget, or awarded contracts to companies without technical capacity, he could be held responsible; but the manager cannot be aware of every elevator.
In 2010 I wrote about the ABC nursery: “We must put a stop to the laxity with which officials at all levels have acted on security issues. But virtually all offices and public facilities in the country commit the same security breaches that caused the Hermosillo tragedy.”
Alfredo Álvarez shared on Twitter the photograph of an IMSS elevator in Zacatecas with the same problem as that of Carmen beach. The lack of maintenance in the capital’s Metro is evident to everyone, except Claudia Sheinbaum. Mexican politicians love to spend money on social programs, which buy votes, or on flashy projects, but not on maintenance, which cannot be seen. This is the reason why we suffer so many accidents in public facilities.
kundera
Milan Kundera was not only the author of a great literary work, but he allowed the world to learn about the abuses of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe. Some say that this is why he was denied the Nobel Prize that he so deserved.
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