The military is preparing to demolish a Mexico City hospital 2 1/2 years after it was irreparably damaged by a pair of earthquakes.

The Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) General Hospital 25 served over 400,000 residents of the capital’s Iztapalapa borough, who since the quakes of September 2017 have had to go to medical centers in the neighboring cities of Texcoco and Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl, in México state.

IMSS general secretary Javier Guerrero García announced the demolition as well as the construction of a new facility at a ceremony on the grounds on Monday, where he mourned what was lost in the quakes.

“As a result of the earthquakes of September 2017, this building stopped functioning … after 46 doctors’ offices were damaged and 272 beds were lost. We also lost six X-ray rooms,” he said.

He added that the loss of the facility “affected the work of 225 doctors and 431 nurses who attended 9,000 emergencies and carried out 750 surgeries per year.”

There was an open tender for the new hospital in 2019, but none of the offers was accepted so IMSS decided to sign a deal with army engineers from the Ministry of National Defense (Sedena) for the construction of the new hospital.

“The armed forces have the support of 70% of the citizens and are here to protect the people from threats and disasters and to support the health of citizens,” he said.

Guerrero did not say how much the new facility will cost, but that it would be completed in two years.

The demolition will take about six months to complete. Due to the dangers presented by the geological makeup of the ground, a former lake bed, the new hospital will have fewer floors than the previous seven-story structure.

The federal government reported last September that repairs of damaged buildings were only 30% complete two years after the disaster.

Source: El Sol de México (sp)