Furloughs and Recruitment: Medical Personnel Understaffed in Mexico

Early this April, Dallas hospital Tenet Healthcare furloughed 3,400 employees all across the United States to compensate for the loss of revenue from the suspension of discretionary procedures.

Seemingly against the current, medical facilities are asking the immediate employment of health workers in hospitals where the COVID-19 struck most. Recruitment centers in Mexico are flooded with applicants, but most of them come home empty-handed as the hospital management rejects their applications.

READ: Medical Staff Furloughed From New Mexico Hospitals

Furloughs 

Tenet has a chain of 65 hospitals and 500 other medical offices and clinics. In Worcester, a union of medical employees contradicts the decision of the company.

Surgical nurse Marlena Pellegrino believed that most hospitals require more doctors and nurses during the pandemic, and criticized, along with the rest of the union of employees in St. Vincent Hospital, the way management was handling the situation. She said, "This is no time to be sending staff home."

A representative for Methodist Health System in Dallas Ryan Owens asserts that in health centers where operations are suspended, the management has rescheduled appointments and reassigned staff for the mobilization of progress across different departments or areas.

There are times when some of the staff must be sent home, but these are "rare" at most, Owens continues. He says that the hospital can "offer a plan that allows workers to be paid 75% of their standard weekly hours."

Of 113,000 Tenet medical staff, 3% of the number is affected by the 60-day furlough. As mentioned previously, discretionary procedures like surgeries and ultrasounds conducted in facilities are either suspended or operating under certain restrictions or limitations. Before this, there was a furlough of around 500 employees. 

ALSO READ: COVID-19 Update: Recovered Patients Are Observed With Coronavirus 'Reactivation'

(Photo: Reuters)

Applications Declined

As of Thursday, Mexico has over 6,000 patients positive for coronavirus and has 486 deaths, and Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell said that hospitals in the country are incredibly understaffed. He adds, "That creates a challenge for us, and we need to recruit and train health personnel."

According to analysts from the Mexican Social Security Institute, 30% of the medical employees are furloughed because of the high risk they pose working on the front lines, either because of factors that compromise their immune systems like age and underlying health problems. There were 400,000 health workers laid off.

Even the military has been tasked by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to assist with the recruitment of front-line workers as there is a shortage of at least thousands of nurses and doctors.

However, over 800 applicants have been rejected by the management.

Medical school graduates believe this offers opportunities for others to gain employment and help in the pandemic, as this is "what they were trained for." However, many find themselves frustrated as their applications have been turned down, or they are yet to receive results. Some even claim there is a lack of contact with the recruitment centers during the application process.

READ MORE: How Did Ecuador Become the Epicenter of COVID-19 in Latin America?