In parts of Mexico,
doctors, nurses and other health workers are being harassed to the point that federal authorities have pleaded for Mexicans to show solidarity, AP reports.
While tributes to courageous medical personnel putting themselves in the virus’ path circle the globe, Mexico and some other places have seen disturbing aggression born of fear.
Recently, a hospital in Guadalajara Mexico’s second-largest city were told to wear civilian clothes to and from work rather than their scrubs or uniforms because
some public buses refused to allow them to board. Other medical personnel have reported attacks and this week
someone threw flammable liquid on the doors of a new hospital under construction in the northern border state of Nuevo Leon.
Two nurses wearing protective masks pose inside the new immediate response mobile hospital in Pachuca, Mexico, 19 March, 2020. Photograph: Henry Romero/Reuters
“There have been cases, you could say isolated, but all outrageous,” Mexican undersecretary of health Hugo López-Gatell said Monday night. “Fear produces irrational reactions, reactions that make no sense, have no foundation and have no justification when they have to do with respecting the dignity and the physical integrity of people.”
It also comes as the Mexican government has embarked in a massive recruiting drive to bolster the thin ranks of its public health system before the virus hits with its full force.
Mexico has 2,439 confirmed cases of the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University figures, and 125 people have died.