The first 54 Cuban doctors hired by the federal government to provide care in remote or marginalized communities of the country have started work in Tepic, Nayarit.
After a period of familiarization, the doctors will head out to smaller communities in the state, where they will provide their services for periods of six months at a time. Pueblos the doctors will be working in include Las Varas, Jesús María, San Francisco (San Pancho) and Tondoroque, the latter two located in the municipality of Bahía de Banderas. Mexico’s medical community criticized President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador for hiring Cuban doctors when there is a surfeit of trained doctors leaving medical schools each year. The federal government, however, says most of the medical graduates are reluctant to work in isolated, rural communities.