Frontera NorteSur December 2002-January 2003

Méxicali Nursing School to Close?

Like the US, Mexico has a shortage of nurses. In Chihuahua, the Hospital de la Familia in Ciudad Juárez opened its own 150-student nursing school because the state has been unable to produce the necessary numbers of nurses. However, the nationwide shortage of nurses does not appear to have been severe enough to keep a Méxicali nursing program open.

According to teachers and students in the nursing program at Méxicali's Hospital General, the public nursing school will be closed. Hospital officials would neither confirm nor deny that the program is scheduled for termination. 

The Méxicali newspaper La Voz de la Frontera (no relation to FNS) reported that more than 90 would-be students that pre-registered for the nursing school were not allowed by program officials to formally enroll in the program. The nursing school currently has 70 students. 

Doctor Juan Cortés Nuñez, a teacher at the nursing school, said that he believes that the Secretary of Health clearly intends to end the program. Cortés opposes the closing especially because it is one of the few options for poor students to obtain a degree or a technical career. 

Although the director of the hospital, Dr. Felipe Martínez Aguirre, would neither confirm nor deny that the school is slated for closure, he did state that school was not accepting students for the upcoming year. 

Students and faculty both signed a  letter to the governor of Baja California asking him not to close the program. Faculty also complained that they have not received a salary increase for four years. 

Source: La Voz de la Frontera (Méxicali), October 24, 2002. Article by Julio Rodriguez.