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The U.S. has the highest medical and health care costs in the world — a reality that is driving 1.2 million medical tourists from there to Mexico each year, where up-front costs are lower. Yet for Mexicans whose wages or incomes are many times lower, living in the country with the most expensive medicine in Latin America presents an obstacle to treatment.

Mexico faces serious, deadly shortages of medicines and supplies like gauze and gloves in its complex hospital system, as well as a thriving informal market. Big Pharma is having a free-for-all in Mexico and in the U.S. In both countries, the private health sector is using monopolistic practices to dominate, and to marginalize public care.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum recently announced that branches of the public health system catering separately to formal employees or to poorer, informal sectors would be integrated. But this won’t address the fact that hospitals are struggling to meet the population’s basic needs, which is driving people into private care out of necessity and contributing to the 20 percent of deaths in Mexico caused by a lack of medical attention or medicine.

Mexico faces serious, deadly shortages of medicines and supplies like gauze and gloves in its complex hospital system … hospitals are struggling to meet the population’s basic needs.

As a major industrial producer, Mexico should not be facing these issues, but only 40 percent of devices produced stay in Mexico. It is the biggest exporter of medical devices like syringes and catheters to the U.S., and the third-largest globally. Big Pharma companies such as Becton, Dickinson and Company (U.S.), Johnson & Johnson (U.S.), Medtronic (Ireland), Siemens Healthineers (Germany), and Dräger (Germany) use Mexico’s water and energy resources and pay low wages, to then quickly send products north to customers in the U.S.

“We can see you but we don’t have any supplies to treat you with,” I was told last time I went to a Bienestar (Well-being) clinic — the system for the majority of Mexicans who aren’t formally employed. Like others, I had waited in line since 7:00 am. Others in the line had been waiting for diabetes treatment or mammograms. As the only option for primary care, sick people and the elderly often have to stand in the sun for hours to wait for treatment.

I saw the dentist at midday. He identified a cavity, then I had to see a private dentist to treat it. I asked when they expected to have supplies. “We don’t know, maybe in three or four months,” the dentist replied.

Mexican company PiSA Farmacéutica exports various products including cancer medicine to the U.S., Canada, Latin America, and Europe. In Mexico it has a monopoly on public supply contracts and is failing to meet its commitments and deliver those medicines. Swiss company Novartis produces and conducts clinical research in Mexico, and in a country with serious cancer medicine shortages, charges Mexicans astronomical prices: Afinitor 10 mg is up to 88,000 pesos (about $4,800 in U.S. currency), Votrient 400 mg is 47,465 pesos (about $2,600 in U.S. currency) — prices equivalent to 6-12 months’ income for the typical Mexican worker. GSK also uses Mexico for clinical research, then charges 3,000 pesos (about $160 in U.S. currency) for its herpes vaccine.

Merck sells an HPV vaccine for 3,900 pesos — unaffordable for most women, and only a little less expensive than in the U.S.,........

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