Tourist services protest Cozumel coral reef closures

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September 25, 2019

White band disease has triggered reef closures.

Tourism service providers have protested the decision to close some of the reefs around the island of Cozumel due to the presence of a disease that destroys coral.

The Natural Protected Areas Commission (Conanp) announced this week that it will restrict access to much of the Cozumel Reefs National Marine Park beginning on October 7 because 40% of coral is affected by white band disease, an ailment that destroys the tissue of Caribbean acroporid coral.

(Mexico News Daily earlier referred to the disease as “coral bleaching,” which is in fact something else.)

The disease, which was first detected in coral reefs off the coast of the United States Virgin Islands, was noticed in reefs off Quintana Roo in 2018. The disease gets its name from the white bands of dead coral tissue that it forms.

In response to Conanp’s decision, reef tourism operators protested outside the Cozumel offices of the commission, where they claimed that close to 500 families will lose their sole source of income.

One of the protesters questioned why reefs at the Palancar and El Cielo beaches were being closed but those at the Paraíso and Chankanaab beaches were not.

In an interview with the newspaper Noticaribe, Víctor Torres acknowledged that reefs at Palancar and El Cielo are damaged but said that those at the two other beaches are even worse.

“. . . Why aren’t they closing that area?” he asked.

Torres said that authorities may have underestimated the economic impact of the decision to close some of Cozumel’s most popular reefs.

“I don’t know if they have really calculated the economic impact on all the people that work in [reef tourism]. We know that there are people with permits but there are also a lot of people that don’t have them but work [in the industry] with dignity and honesty,” he said.

Torres said that a lot of people on the island will be left without a source of income and contended that the government should pay compensation to them.

In Baja California and Yucatán, financial support was given to fishermen when fishing restrictions were imposed to protect the vaquita marina porpoise and the sea cucumber but “they’re not thinking about that here,” he said.

While the reef tourism operators recognized that the reefs are sick, they said that restricting access to them is not the solution, explaining that they take precautions to ensure that they don’t contribute to further damage.

Torres predicted that the decision will not only affect the economy but damage the island’s reputation as a tourist destination.

“. . . The state [Quintana Roo] suffers from sargassum but Cozumel is free of it and that’s why people come. By sending this message, they’ll stop coming,” he said, adding that he personally stands to lose at least 4,000 pesos (US $205) per day.

Other reef tourism operators said that tourists will chose to go to “Cuba or Belize” if they can’t dive and snorkel on Cozumel’s reefs.

The exact cause of white band disease is unknown but scientists believe that it is linked to pollution and the presence of seaweed such as sargassum in seawater.

Healthy Reefs, a group that tracks the health of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System, says the effect of the disease is “unprecedented” as mortality rates are high and around 20 different types of coral are susceptible to it, including brain, pillar and star corals.

Source: Noticaribe (sp), El Universal (en)

Of 60 tonnes of garbage in Veracruz river, 14 have been removed

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Simon Schatzberg

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September 25, 2019

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The garbage-choked Río Blanco in Veracruz. — The garbage-choked Río Blanco.

The government of Veracruz announced that 14 tonnes or 25 cubic meters of garbage had been removed from the Río Blanco by Tuesday, but there was still a lot left.

But the garbage removed only accounts for a fraction of the estimated 60 tonnes of organic and inorganic waste that have covered a six-kilometer stretch of the river since last week.

According to Veracruz Governor Cuitláhuac García, the trash likely came from illegal landfills located near the river. The garbage would have been carried away after water levels rose during heavy rains. He said a Veracruz environmental prosecutor is investigating the case.

The initial response focused on containing the trash in the coastal municipality of Alvarado to prevent it from reaching the sea.

Veracruz Environment Secretary María del Rocío Pérez said that 16 boats worked to remove the trash, of which six belong to the Veracruz port authority. After the trash was removed, it was loaded onto trucks and deposited at the El Guayabo landfill in the municipality of Medellín.

She added that authorities continue working to clean up the river and prevent the trash from reaching the Alvarado and María Lizamba lagoon systems.

The garbage was removed by state and federal officials, private businesses and local fishermen and boat owners.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Mexico City lawmaker pushes for free sex change surgery

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Cody Copeland

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September 25, 2019

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Deputy Quiroga proposes that the state provide sex-change surgery.

A member of the Mexico City Congress has proposed a reform to the city’s health laws to make sex change surgery free in public hospitals.

Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) Deputy Gabriela Quiroga Anguiano, herself a transgender woman, said the reform would allow public hospitals to offer vaginoplasty (removal of the vagina), metoidioplasty (conversion of the clitoris into a penis) or phalloplasty (removal of the penis), as well as all necessary follow-up attention.

“A person’s sense of self is not determined by chromosomes, sexual organs, sex assigned at birth, or initial gender roles, so neither are one’s identity or abilities restricted by what society says is masculine or feminine,” said the legislator.

“We have taken important steps in giving attention to the transsexual population, such as funding for hormone treatment and name changes on birth certificates, as well as defending their rights in order to prevent discrimination.”

She recalled Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum’s announcement of the construction of a hospital for the treatment of the trans population and acknowledged that such surgeries could be carried out there, but said she didn’t want the services to be limited to one such institution.

“We would end up causing discrimination,” she said.

Quiroga emphasized that in the last 20 years, Mexico City has taken it upon itself to defend the rights of the most vulnerable sectors of its population, such as by recognizing same-sex marriage.

In accordance with the Mexican Institute of Sexology, a person can have sexual reassignment surgery after receiving two years of psychotherapy and hormone therapy.

The average cost for the surgery is 500,000 pesos (US $25,500).

Quiroga said that such treatment should be carried out by the necessary personnel and under quality conditions so that no one suffers any negative consequences.

Sources: El Universal (sp), Animal Político (sp)

Satellite internet service announces expansion across Mexico

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Simon Schatzberg

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September 25, 2019

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Satellite company announces greater coverage.

The United States company Hughes Network Systems announced on Tuesday that it will expand its satellite internet service to most of Mexico starting on October 1.

According to a press release, HughesNet high-speed satellite internet will be available for 95% of Mexico, including rural and marginalized areas. According to a 2018 report by Freedom House, only 63.9% of Mexicans were connected to the internet in 2018, and only 14% of internet users were in rural areas.

HughesNet provides satellite internet service to 1.4 million people in Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and the United States. The service offers download speeds of up to 25 megabits per second, much higher than Mexico’s national average of 6 Mbps.

Hughes hopes to deliver internet to the millions of Mexican homes that are not connected, especially in remote areas where infrastructure is limited.

“We don’t depend on cable or fiber infrastructure,” said marketing manager Cristina Mendoza at an event to inaugurate the service on Tuesday. “That means we can offer our services in our coverage areas independently of geographic conditions or population density.”

Initially HughesNet will only be available to residential customers, but the company hopes to offer internet to small and large businesses in the future.

Source: La Razón (sp)

Mexico City could give 525,000 pesos to quake victims who leave

By

Cody Copeland

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September 25, 2019

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Quake damage in Iztapalapa. Some people want to move away.

The Mexico City government is considering a program that would provide economic support to victims of the September 19, 2017 earthquake who want to move elsewhere in the country.

Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum explained that the support would come in the form of 525,000 pesos (US $27,000) or new housing. The idea is being discussed with the federal Secretariat of Agrarian Development and Urban Planning (Sedatu) and the Reconstruction Commission.

“If someone says, ‘I don’t want to be relocated there, I want to move out of the capital,’ we’re working with [federal authorities] to see how and with what resources the government can help families move to other parts of the country, but the program still isn’t fully developed,” she said.

The Reconstruction Commission plans to relocate 832 housing units in shanty towns of the boroughs of Iztapalapa, Tláhuac and Xochimilco. Of these, 573 are in areas where the ground was fractured by the quake.

Calculating an average of five people per family, the government estimates that it will have to relocate 4,160 people. It has already identified the land for the families’ relocation and plans to buy it soon.

But at least 15 families in the affected boroughs have shown their unwillingness to be relocated in the city.

Sheinbaum emphasized that the program is still in development and that it will be put before the victims for consultation and to come to a consensus.

She added that those who have been notified of relocation will be moved to different areas of the same boroughs in which they already live.

“What we want to do is inform the victims first and make everything public so that no bad information is circulated, to come to a consensus,” she said.

On September 19, federal authorities reported that earthquake reconstruction efforts were 30% complete.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Pre-clearing shipments to Mexico could eliminate long delivery delays

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Simon Schatzberg

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September 25, 2019

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The airport where the customs pre-clearing process will be implemented.

A new customs pre-clearing system at a suburban Phoenix, Arizona, airport is expected to reduce international shipping times to Mexico.

The SkyBridge Arizona project will bring Mexican customs officials to the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, where they will pre-clear packages, allowing them to be delivered directly to recipients in Mexico.

Officials say the system will prevent long waits faced by online shoppers in Mexico as items clear customs.

Bill Jabjiniak, director of economic development for the Phoenix suburb of Mesa, told the border issues newspaper Border Report that the system will streamline air shipping between the United States and Mexico and make Gateway Airport an even more important hub.

“This includes companies like Amazon and Ebay but also companies and manufacturers that are looking to do business in Mexico,” he said. “It’ll fast-track shipments to their final destinations and create a secure delivery system because customs will be tracking those packages.”

Work will begin on SkyBridge Arizona in October. According to Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, the 350-acre project will cost US $230 million, and will include two million square feet of warehouse space and one million square feet of offices. Mesa officials say the project will create as many as 17,000 jobs.

Jabjiniak said that SkyBridge is projected to control 5% of the southwest’s exports to Mexico by 2025, while Governor Ducey said that cargo flights out of Gateway Airport will number 10,000 a year by 2036.

SkyBridge is centered on an expansion of Unified Cargo Processing, a collaborative program between U.S. Customs and Border Patrol and Mexico’s federal tax authority (SAT) which brings SAT officials to the United States to pre-clear shipments to Mexico. The first Unified Cargo Processing pilot program started in 2016 in Nogales, Arizona.

Source: Border Report (en), AZ Big Media (en)

Judge accepts argument that halting Santa Lucía airport risk to national security

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MND Staff

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September 25, 2019

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Members of an organization representing 12 communities, including Santa María Ozumbilla, that have taken legal action against airport.

A federal judge has rejected a request for a definitive suspension to the Santa Lucía airport project, accepting the Defense Secretariat (Sedena) argument that halting construction could place national security at risk.

The September 23 ruling came in response to an injunction request filed by a representative of the indigenous people of Santa María Ozumbilla, a México state town just south of the air force base site where the airport will be built.

The newspaper El Universal said the Mexico City-based administrative judge could make similar rulings in Sedena’s favor in response to more than 100 injunction requests filed against the airport by the #NoMásDerroches (No More Waste) collective and the indigenous peoples of Tecámac, México state, who are concerned about the environmental impact of the project, including pressure on already depleted water resources.

The legal action has prevented the government from starting construction of the US $4.8-billion airport, which is part of the plan to relieve pressure on the Mexico City airport and replaces the previous government’s project at Texcoco.

In Monday’s ruling, the judge said that national security must prevail over the social interests of the complainants.

The decision overturned a provisional suspension order that also stipulated that the federal government must consult with local indigenous people before proceeding with construction.

Sedena opposed the latest injunction request on the grounds that all of its movable and immovable property, including the Santa Lucía airport project, were classified as strategic installations on August 29.

The judge ruled that the construction of the airport, a road link to the existing Mexico City airport and the relocation of military facilities on the base are directly related to matters of national security.

However, the ruling doesn’t bring the injunction request filed by the Santa María Ozumbilla representative to a definitive end because another hearing on the matter, which has been tentatively set for October 4, must be held.

Lawyers for Sedena, which has been given responsibility to build the airport, can expect to spend a lot of time in court in the coming weeks and months.

Requests for injunctions, several of which have been granted, seek to stop construction based on concerns related to the environment, air security and the rights of indigenous peoples, among other issues.

Sedena filed an appeal on September 4 in response to a definitive suspension order request against the airport project which – in contrast to Monday’s ruling – was issued.

The defense department was to argue in court on Tuesday that the injunction and others that have been granted were contrary to the national interest. But the judge cancelled the hearing without setting a new date.

However, the newspaper Milenio reported on Wednesday that a hearing will take place on Friday to determine whether the injunctions will be lifted.

Whether they are overturned or not could hinge on the view taken by the Supreme Court (SCJN).

The court’s Second Chamber is scheduled to consider today the contradiction between the different rulings issued by two courts: that handed down on Monday rejecting the request to definitively suspend construction of the airport and the one that did grant a definitive suspension order to the #NoMásDerroches collective.

The court’s ruling will set a precedent that must be followed by judges of lower courts but Milenio noted that the SCJN could determine that there is no discrepancy between the two rulings because they were made in response to different claims.

Although a hearing has been set for Friday, judicial officials said that it is probable that it too will be postponed as #NoMásDerroches waits for the National Security Council to comply with its request for a list that details all facilities located at the air force base.

The collective, which is pushing for work on the Texcoco project to resume, believes that the list will support its argument that halting work on the Santa Lucía airport is not contrary to the national interest.

It argued on Monday that a ruling in Sedena’s favor would set a “worrying precedent” because “it would open the door to future appeals to ‘national security’ and public order to deny citizens their right to seek injunctions.”

The collective also said that the “federal judicial power has the non-delegable duty to protect Mexicans against any abuse by the authorities.”

President López Obrador has maintained that the opposition to the airport is politically motivated and amounts to “legal sabotage.”

At his regular news conference on Wednesday morning, he defended the government’s decision to fight the injunctions using the national security argument.

The president, whose decision to cancel the Texcoco airport was made in part because he believed the project was corrupt, told reporters that the defense on national security grounds doesn’t mean that the government will seek to be secretive about the execution of the Santa Lucía plan.

“The decision has [already] been made that there will be transparency,” he said.

Source: El Universal (sp), Milenio (sp)

Where’s AMLO? President misses another meeting of world leaders, this one at UN

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MND Staff

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September 24, 2019

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As world leaders discussed climate change, AMLO discussed increased refinery capacity.

Another meeting of world leaders is taking place this week and again President López Obrador will be conspicuous by his absence.

In June, López Obrador decided not to travel to Osaka, Japan, for the annual G20 leaders’ summit, declaring that he didn’t want to be drawn into a “direct confrontation” between the United States and China about their trade war.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard and then finance secretary Carlos Urzúa represented Mexico in the president’s stead.

On Monday, as world leaders spent the day at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York promising to ban coal and cut emissions, López Obrador held his regular early morning news conference in Mexico City where he touted an increase in capacity of the nation’s oil refineries and showed off a new app that consumers can use to find the cheapest gas stations in the country.

The annual United Nations General Assembly opened in the Big Apple on Tuesday and will run through until Friday but AMLO, as the president is commonly known, won’t be making an appearance at that either. Once again, Ebrard will step in for López Obrador.

The president says he is too busy attending to national matters to travel abroad and frequently quips that “the best foreign policy is domestic policy.”

In fact, AMLO hasn’t left the country at all since he took office last December and the only leaders with whom he has met are the presidents of a few Central American countries.

All of those meetings, such as that with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele in Chiapas in June, were in southern states.

López Obrador has not yet had a face-to-face meeting with United States President Donald Trump although he has spoken to his counterpart via telephone, most recently on September 11.

Stay-at-home diplomacy, however, falls short of what is required of a president, according to the director of the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of California, San Diego.

“For him not to travel leaves us missing a lot of international opportunities,” Rafael Fernández de Castro, who was previously a foreign policy advisor to former president Felipe Calderón, told National Public Radio.

Former foreign affairs secretary Castañeda: AMLO has no foreign policy.

“He’s losing opportunities because leaders talk to leaders, not to someone sent to talk to them. It’s not the same,” he added.

Jorge Castañeda, secretary of foreign affairs for the first two years of the government of former president Vicente Fox, pointed out that López Obrador’s opportunities to meet with other leaders have also been limited by a lower than usual number of visits to Mexico by foreign dignitaries.

“This is new for Mexico. Normally you’ll see at least 10 visits to Mexico by foreign dignitaries in the first year of a government,” he said.

“Over a whole administration, this means fewer businessmen come, foreign press, tourism officials. We hurt our good image in the world,” Castañeda added.

Now a professor at New York University, Castañeda contended that López Obrador is uncomfortable in international settings because he doesn’t speak English and, more importantly, because he lacks a foreign policy.

The president – who has adopted a policy of non-intervention in the affairs of foreign countries – has said that he is open to traveling to the United States to meet with Trump, with whom he has developed a cordial relationship, but only if there is a valid reason or something to announce.

The president has pledged not to engage in “political tourism” and shortly after he took office he put the luxurious presidential plane up for sale, choosing instead to fly commercial when he travels long distances within Mexico. López Obrador has also cut by half the daily travel expense allowances afforded to government officials.

“There can’t be a rich government with a poor people,” he often says when lauding his government’s austerity measures.

Source: NPR (en)

International commission laments lack of advances in Ayotzinapa probe

By

MND Staff

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September 24, 2019

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Former attorney general Murillo and investigator Zerón are themselves to be investigated. — Former attorney general Murillo, left, and investigator Zerón are themselves to be investigated. Archive

The investigation into the disappearance of 43 students in Iguala, Guerrero, in 2014 dragged on for more than four years under the previous government, and continues to do so.

The president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has expressed regret over the lack of progress made by the federal government, despite a commitment it has made to get to the bottom of the controversial and tragic case.

In an interview with the newspaper El Universal, Esmeralda Arosemena de Troitiño also said that all high-ranking officials who may have been involved in the disappearance of the students on September 26, 2014, or who may have obstructed the probe into the crime, must be investigated.

“The investigations haven’t advanced as quickly as we expected,” Arosemena said, although she added that it was “very encouraging” that President López Obrador met this month with the parents of the missing students, all of whom attended the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College in Guerrero.

That showed that the president was fulfilling his commitment to solve the case, the IACHR chief said.

However, the former judge of the Supreme Court of Panama said she had heard that some institutions – which she didn’t name – are not cooperating with the investigations.

Asked what the IACHR is demanding of the government, Arosemena responded that the commission wants “something concrete” from authorities by September 26 – the fifth anniversary of the students’ disappearance.

“[We want] something detailed from the investigation in order to find those responsible, but also the young men . . . I read in the news that there was already important information about where the students could be found, that [information] has to be acted on, it can’t be delayed, because the situation is coming up to five years,” she said.

Arosemena said that a fresh investigation into the events of September 2014 – the government said last week that a new probe into the case would be opened – must include interviews with army personnel stationed in Guerrero at the time.

According to the previous government’s “historical truth,” the students were intercepted by corrupt municipal police and handed over to the Guerreros Unidos crime gang who killed them and burned their bodies in a municipal dump.

However, the investigation carried out by the Enrique Peña Nieto-led government was widely criticized and many people suspect that the army played a role in the student’s disappearance. One theory is that the students’ bodies were burned in the incinerators of a Guerrero army base.

Human rights commission chief Arosemena would like to see some progress in the Ayotzinapa investigation.

Arosemena also said that an investigation into high-ranking officials of the past government could be crucial to finding out the truth about what happened to the students.

The federal Attorney General’s Office has announced that it will investigate former attorney general Jesús Murillo Karam – who first announced the “historical truth” – as well as former Criminal Investigation Agency chief Tomás Zerón and former Ayotzinapa investigation chief José Aarón Pérez.

The IACHR president said that solving the Iguala case is important because it will bring “peace and tranquility to the entire population” of Mexico and enhance the standing of the country’s justice system.

If officials are found guilty of involvement in the student’s disappearance or obstructing justice they must be punished, Arosemena said.

She added that she was confident that the truth would be uncovered, explaining that she has seen evidence of some progress made by the government’s truth commission and that she personally knows Omar Gómez Trejo, the special prosecutor in charge of the reexamination of the case.

“. . . He participated in the GIEI [the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts, which was formed by the IACHR to assist the previous government’s investigation]. That gives me confidence . . .” Arosemena said.

Gómez said last Wednesday that authorities are going to start the Ayotzinapa probe again, explaining that “a long list of politicians that bear different degrees of responsibility” would be investigated.

Arosemena said that the IACHR has a representative in Mexico who will closely monitor the progress of the investigation, adding that she was hopeful that the commission would have the opportunity to president evidence related to the case.

“We rejected the historical truth with scientific facts. However, they [the previous government] maintained that version [of events]. Now it’s another time, there are other circumstances, I hope that we will be listened to . . .”

Asked whether the release from prison of 77 people linked to the Iguala case represented a failure of Mexico’s justice system, Arosemena responded:

“The accusatory criminal system is not designed so that criminals leave [prison] laughing at their victims. What we need is for the system to work so that people who can provide information [about a crime] receive some kind of concession . . . It’s not about releasing them because their responsibility has to be determined but we need to find mechanisms, other than torture, to get that information.”

The United Nations human rights office said in a report last year that that were “solid grounds to believe that torture was committed against” 34 people arrested in connection with the disappearance of the students.

Gildardo López Astudillo, who was allegedly the Guerreros Unidos plaza chief in Iguala at the time of the students’ disappearance, other gang members and 24 municipal police officers suspected of involvement in the case were recently released from prison because judges ruled that the evidence against them was obtained by illegal means, including torture.

Source: El Universal (sp), Reuters (en)

More jobs in Canada, Germany: nurses and seniors care providers wanted

By

Cody Copeland

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September 24, 2019

0

Canada and Germany are hiring, but Mexico hasn't enough of its own.

The Mexican government has posted 140 job openings for nurses in Canada and Germany, some of which pay up to 87,000 pesos a month.

Posted on the government’s online employment portal, the jobs include opportunities for registered nurses and senior citizen care providers, positions the host countries are having trouble filling with their own citizens.

Germany has 40 positions available in the state of Bavaria for nurses to take care of its aging citizens. The positions come with a monthly salary of 2,600 euros, about US $2,900.

Canada offered 50 openings for nurses in July, but has now increased the number of positions available to Mexican nurses.

In Quebec, there are 100 openings for registered nurses that offer a base monthly salary of 48,000 pesos. The monthly salary can go as high as 87,000 pesos per month, depending on experience and qualifications.

The job announcements come as Mexico is also experiencing a nursing shortage, but not for lack of qualified individuals.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends six nurses for every 1,000 inhabitants in order for a country to provide quality medical care for its citizens. Mexico has only 3.9.

That represents a shortage of 255,928 nurses in the country, in both the private and public sectors. Tamaulipas and Mexico City are the only two entities that meet the WHO recommended ratio, while the states of Puebla, Querétaro, Veracruz and Michoacán have fewer than three nurses for every 1,000 citizens.

But the shortage isn’t due to a lack of interest in the profession, but rather a lack of positions available, said María Alberta García Jiménez, president of the National Nursing Academy of Mexico.

“The reality is that there’s interest among young people to study the profession. There are 700 registered nursing schools. What happens is that there aren’t positions being offered for them to be able to work,” she said.

She said solving the shortage will require the government to increase budgets in order to open up more positions.

“The financial aspect is the determining factor. If there is no budget for increasing positions, there will not be an answer for the reduction of suffering,” she said.

Source: El Financiero (sp)