Healthcare in Mexico

Healthcare in Mexico is provided via public institutions, private entities, or private physicians. Healthcare delivered through private organizations operates entirely on the free-market system, i.e., it is available to those who can afford it. This is also the case of healthcare obtained from private physicians at their private office or clinic. Public healthcare delivery, on the other hand, is accomplished via an elaborate provisioning and delivery system put in place by the Mexican Federal Government. In 2012, Mexico instituted universal healthcare. As of December 31, 2013, there were 4,466 hospitals in Mexico.

Hospitals were established in Mexico in the early sixteenth century, including ones exclusively for Indians. Some were established by the crown, others by private endowment, but most by the Catholic Church. Bishop Vasco de Quiroga established hospital complexes in Michoacan in the sixteenth century. In Mexico City, conqueror Hernán Cortés established the Hospital de Jesús Nazareno for Indians, which still functions as a hospital. The Hospicio Cabañas in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, was founded in 1791. The institution, still functioning, is now a World Heritage Site. It is one of the oldest and largest hospital complexes in Latin America. The complex was founded by the Bishop of Guadalajara to combine the functions of a workhouse, hospital, orphanage, and almshouse.

The Mexican healthcare program IMSS was founded in 1943 during the presidency of Manuel Avila Camacho. In the early 1990s, Mexico showed clear signs of having entered a transitional stage in the health of its population. When compared with 1940 or even 1970, Mexico in the 1990s exhibited mortality patterns that more closely approximated those found in developed societies. By 2009, during the notorious swine flu pandemic, the World Health Organization director said that Mexico "gave the world a model of rapid and transparent reporting, aggressive control measures, and generous sharing of data and samples". The CDC's flu director Nancy Cox, added that Mexico's response "impressed the entire world".

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