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 Health & Beauty | June 2007 
Mexico, US to Discuss Health Plan for Migrants
 Wang Hongjiang - Xinhua
| | Dr. José Ángel Córdova Villalobos is a native of León, Guanajuato. |
Mexico City - The health ministers of Mexico and the United States are to work out a joint strategy Tuesday for caring Mexican migrants suffering health problems along the border, the Mexican Health Ministry said on Monday.
The final plan will be sent to the U.S. Congress that is now in recess, the ministry said in a statement.
Mexican Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said he began talking about the health plan for migrants with his U.S. counterpart Michael Leavitt a few weeks ago in Geneva, Switzerland, at the World Health Organization headquarters.
"The plan would guarantee basic medical help for thousands of future migrants as they cross the border," Cordova said.
According to statistics from Mexican and U.S. governments, around 500,000 people enter the United States illegally via its border with Mexico each year.
Mexican illegal migrants reach the U.S. border in a variety of ways, many of them dangerous, such as crossing the Texas desert in harsh climatic conditions and risking the attack of poisonous animals, or being hidden in secret compartments inside vehicles facing the risking of suffocation.
Cordova said the health plan would apply to migrants suffering from serious injuries or chronic diseases, who, in that condition, would be repatriated and receive treatment via the Seguro Popular (People's Health Insurance) in hospitals on the border.
The United States Border Patrol registered 153 undocumented immigrants who died in the period from September 2006 to April 2007. The figure was down from 166 in the same period a year earlier. |
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