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By KELIN DILLON

While Mexico’s Secretariat of Health announced that it would be implementing a robust hiring program for medical specialists to fill nearly 14,000 vacant positions on May 24, the employment strategy has altogether fallen flat, with more than 50 percent of those positions reportedly not receiving a single application from their targeted audience in the weeks following. 

According to Zoé Robledo, director of Mexico’s Social Security Institute (IMSS), Mexico was searching for 1,753 internists, 1,728 emergency medicine specialists, 1,572 gynecology specialists, 1,517 pediatric physicians and 1,367 anesthesiologists at the time of the May 24 announcement, leaving applications open until Jun 3.

Now, just several days after the filing deadline, it’s been revealed that 7,360 of these vacant positions did not receive a single application, representing 51.38 percent of the available slots throughout Mexico’s public health infrastructure.

Based on the data from the application process, 51.5 percent of the doctors registered on the hiring platform were men compared to 48.5 percent women, with the large majority of applicants – 72.9 percent – aged between 30 and 39, indicating that the specialists that have been interested in Mexico’s available positions are doctors who just recently finished their studies or are still establishing themselves in their field.