Relatives and hemodialysis patients at the General Hospital of Zone No.42 of the Mexican Social Security Institute ( IMSS ) in Puerto Vallarta publicly denounce that the machines are poorly calibrated and cause people to become seriously ill.
They claim that at least 13 patients have died in just two months. IMSS has denied the death allegations.
Mrs. Carmen María Pineda has waged a fierce fight by continually demanding that the director of the hospital, Jorge Humberto Valdivia Flores, fix the machines, since her daughter Reyna Lizeth Huerta Pineda needs them to live. Her kidneys no longer function, and she has been on dialysis for 13 years. She needs a transplant, but the waiting list already has thousands of people on it.
During hemodialysis, the machine removes a small amount of blood from the body using a needle and catheter. The dialyzer then purifies the blood and removes waste, toxins, and excess fluid. A patient must attend three times a week.
Pineda has not received a response to her multiple requests to the IMSS, but she knows that the moment she gives up, it means danger of death for her daughter.
In a letter to Dr. Valdivia, she wrote, “As a result of the machines, within a month and a half, all the patients who arrive there become very thirsty and bloated. There are several that have crashed (for emergency care). You go on hemodialysis, and you come out decompensated, very thirsty, bloated. The next day, it seemed that nothing was done, and they went to the emergency room. They didn’t last a week or 15 days. Mr. Emilio died, Mr. Herculano died, and so on. Dr. Avilés has the list. We have a WhatsApp group where we find out who dies, and that is only on our watch.”
Given the situation, the only thing she could think of was talking to Valdivia, who assured her that the machines would be maintained. However, it has not happened, and the patients continue to become seriously ill.
On February 15, Valdivia wrote a letter to her, stating “The company responsible for providing maintenance has already been asked to provide additional inspection of the hemodialysis machines for better use of them. Regarding subrogation, I inform you that it has already been requested from the delegation. We are waiting for the bidding companies to comply with what is stipulated before Cofepris, Civil Protection, SAT, as well as the certification before the Nephrology College of the health person responsible, every time.
“There are no companies in Puerto Vallarta that comply with what the law establishes. As soon as you have a provider that meets the aforementioned criteria, you can be sure that your patient will be referred to the extramural sessions.”
Three weeks have passed, and the situation remains the same. Several patients are afraid, and, although going to hemodialysis is essential to continue living, they are afraid of going and not returning to their home or their families.
The problem began a few months ago, since before there was surrogate care, that is, the IMSS paid for hemodialysis sessions in private clinics, and the beneficiaries had to go there. That’s over, and they have to go to the hospital on Francisco Medina Ascencio Boulevard until a new service is hired, as the Validivia explained.
A few weeks ago, Pineda’s daughter, Reyna, had a crisis, and arrived at the hospital without vital signs.
Pineda said, “The machines leave my daughter with a lot of sodium. The doctor told me it was the air, just like what happened to Marina (another patient). Marina was getting air, when suddenly she spoke to the person who was hemodialyzing her, which was Fermín, and they quickly pulled the machine away from her. She got air, and from there she got her pre-heart attack. She didn’t know anything, just like my daughter. I told him: ‘Doctor, my daughter arrived dead, without vital signs.’ The emergency doctor answered me: ‘Look, ma’am, this is a result of what you told me about the machines, about the air, but as they say, we can’t talk.'”
Her daughter Reyna confessed that she is afraid to go to hemodialysis, given what is happening, saying, “When I was left without vital signs, they say that I revived. I lost my mind, I didn’t even realize it and I woke up in El Seguro. I don’t even know what to think. I turned around, and each person is sick. I don’t know what’s happening. I tell them, I go three times a week (hemodialysis area), and I heard that so-and-so died, or that they are hospitalized due to lungs full of water, and that generates trauma for me, because I go in with fear, with panic, and I ask myself, ‘is this how I’m going to die?’”
Marina is another hemodialysis patient. She is 42 years old, and, like Reyna, she has depended on it to live for years. Three weeks ago, she had a pre-heart attack, and she attributes it to the malfunctioning of the machines .
She said, “I arrived very well. The nurse finished connecting me to the machine. I recharged, and my body went completely numb. ‘Fermín, I can’t breathe.’ I yelled at the nurses ‘air got into the machine’. I heard before my head went unconscious: ‘Disconnect it, give her oxygen’. I don’t remember how they took me to shock… I came out of that machine with a terrible thirst. The machines have a sensor. It has to be activated so that no air enters your body, and it never warned, the machines “They are not working.”
They told her that she suffered a hypertensive crisis, but after 15 years on hemodialysis, she has had several, and knows that it was not the same. It was a pre-heart attack, other doctors told her.
She said, “The nurse told me when I received you in my ward, ‘I saw you, and I thought you were going to die.’ I have seen several colleagues die in the long run. They were not followed like here in Seguro Social.”
Humberto Ríos was a man of only 31 years old when he died on February 2nd. He had only been undergoing hemodialysis for two years, but he quickly worsened.
His mother, Irene Arredondo, said, “They told him that they were going to put a temporary catheter in his neck, and that in three months they would switch him to hemodialysis. I didn’t like it because his tummy was very damaged, and it wasn’t going to work. His blood pressure went up a lot with the hemodialysis, and even though he saw that it was like that, his catheter became clogged and it no longer worked… He had a seizure because he started to swell. They did his hemodialysis, and they did one or two per week, and he ended up swollen. A doctor who is very kind, Dr. Avilés, said that he needed three hemodialysis, but there was no room because there were too many patients.”
It was not until after her son’s death, when other patients told her about the alleged malfunction of the machines.
She said, “One of her colleagues told us that the machines had to beep to warn us, but now they didn’t didn’t, and that’s how they worked.”
Pineda made a list of the people who have allegedly died in a period of two months. Only their first names are known for some of them, as they were from the same shift. In the hemodialysis area, there are only 10 machines. There they learned that José Guadalupe García had died, Josefina Barrientos, José Barreto, Humberto Ríos, Salvador Peña, José Gaviño, as well as Carmelo, Herculano, Pedro “El gallero”, Christian, Teresa, and Jessica.
Some patients wrote recommendations to the institution, but they did not even accept them. María de la Luz asks for more nephrologists, more hemodialysis machines, and more nurses. Jorge Fabián indicated that it is very hard to sit for five hours waiting for a machine, and there are no nurses. José Guillermo requests more nephrology doctors and more machines. Yesica Lucero asks for more machines and doctors.
IMSS response
Upon request, the Social Communication Coordination of the IMSS gave an official position on the allegations made by the patients and their families on March 5, as follows.
- HGZ No. 42 performs maintenance on hemodialysis equipment on a scheduled basis, under standardized biosafety and quality standards.
- The machines have electronic sensors that prevent the passage of air. In addition, internal cleaning actions are carried out between each session.
- The company that provided the extramural service was suspended until it complies with the requirements to provide this service under current health standards.
- There is no record of deaths related to replacement therapy given in the hospital.
- Kidney disease is a progressive disease that, combined with other complications, such as malnutrition and lack of therapeutic adherence, can be fatal .
- The IMSS promotes different strategies for the prevention of chronic kidney disease, as well as activities for its detection and timely treatment.