Friday, July 11, 2025

Health care workers hold governor’s wife hostage in Tabasco

The Tabasco governor’s wife was trapped inside her car for more than six hours yesterday after disgruntled health workers confronted her at a Villahermosa hospital and prevented her from leaving.

Martha Lilia López Aguilera, wife of Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) Governor Arturo Núñez Jiménez, went to the state capital’s Children’s Hospital to visit her grandson, a patient in the hospital.

As she was leaving, a group of medical personnel, supported by patients’ family members, approached López in the hospital parking lot to demand overdue salary and bonus payments as well as additional funding to purchase medical equipment and supplies and to employ more staff.

López didn’t engage with the protesting workers, but instead got into her SUV and turned on the ignition in an attempt to make a quick exit. However, her car was quickly surrounded by health care workers shouting “Pay us!”

They demanded that the state’s first lady get out of the vehicle and explain how the hospital’s issues would be resolved.

The incident came amid a four-day strike by hospital workers and as Núñez reaches the end of his six-year term as governor. A new governor representing President López Obrador’s Morena party will be sworn in on January 1.

The state’s secretaries of public security and health, Jorge Alberto Aguirre Carbajal and Rommel Cerna Leeder, arrived at the hospital to try to defuse the situation but failed to convince the protesters to withdraw.

Local media reported that 20 police vehicles and a helicopter as well as members of the governor’s personal security detail were later sent to monitor the situation.

At approximately 6:30pm, amid pushing and shoving from the protesters, state police managed to clear a path to allow López to leave in her vehicle.

State Interior Secretary Rosendo Gómez Piedra subsequently announced that outstanding payments owed to health care workers would be made today.

He said the payments had been scheduled to be paid today and denied that it was a consequence of the Tabasco first lady’s ordeal.

Source: Infobae (sp), Milenio (sp) 

Have something to say? Paid Subscribers get all access to make & read comments.
A small plane flies over the ocean

How the Mexican security minister’s slip of the tongue rankled Salvadoran President Bukele

2
President Bukele took exception after García Harfuch's identified a drug-smuggling plane as coming from El Salvador.
gold bars

Highway robbery near Guadalajara nets 6 million pesos worth of gold and silver

0
Such open-road heists have risen in frequency recently and could pose a threat to potential investors otherwise attracted by nearshoring opportunities.
Security chief Omar García Harfuch, Attorney General Gertz and other Mexian officials sit on a stage in front of a banner reading "National Strategy against Extortion" in spanish

Authorities launch national strategy against extortion to tackle a pernicious and widespread crime

1
The strategy contemplates new laws that would force states to investigate the crime, even when victims are too afraid to make an official report.
BETA Version - Powered by Perplexity