President Claudia Sheinbaum launched the Wellness Pharmacies Program for free drug delivery in Mexico. This is a new system of units designed to distribute medicines to the elderly and people with disabilities registered in the Casa por Casa Salud programme.
Casa por Casa Salud makes periodic home visits, and during the third consultation the doctors give the patient a prescription that can be filled in the new units. The President stated during her morning conference that the plan aims to avoid long queues at health centers.
“Through Salud Casa por Casa, they will receive their prescriptions and will be able to receive their medicines permanently (…) Next week a unit will start in the wellness stores where they will be able to get their medicines. This small unit is what we call wellness pharmacies,” the president said.
The first phase began on December 2 with the installation of 500 points in the State of Mexico in the IMSS and IMSS Bienestar health units and in Tiendas del Bienestar, with the aim of expanding to the rest of the country in March 2026.
How do the units work?
The Undersecretary for Sector Integration and Coordination of Health Care Services, Eduardo Clark Garcia, explained that these units are designed to serve three main groups:
- People suffering from chronic diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and dyslipidemia
- Patients who already have a prescription, but cannot afford it
- People diagnosed during a home visit who need to start treatment immediately
The program began delivering 22 types of medicines covering about 80% of the needs of the elderly. In addition, a new home visit will be conducted every two months to monitor the health status of the beneficiaries.
Wellbeing Minister Ariadna Montel Reyes reported that as of December 1, nearly 9 million home consultations had been carried out as part of Health House by House, and that beneficiaries had received their prescriptions with paper and barcode to fill their treatments at Wellbeing pharmacies.
How to get free medicine
To receive the free medicine, you have to go to one of the units and present the prescription issued by the Salud Casa por Casa program, without having to wait in lines or obtain codes, the program indicates.
Beneficiaries will receive enough medication for two months of treatment. After this time, a health team will visit them again to conduct a review and issue a new prescription if necessary.
The first units in the state of Mexico
In the official start of the programme, four units were offered out of the 500 existing in the State of Mexico: in the Benito Juarez Health Unit in Naucalpan; In Ecatepec, Santa Clara Health Unit of IMSS Bienestar; Valle de Chalco Health Unit of IMSS Bienestar; and the Rural Medical Unit of San Ignacio de Loyola, in Atlacomulco.
After the installation of these first units, implementation in the rest of the country is expected to take place in March 2026.
Subscribe to the EL PAÍS Mexico newsletter And to WhatsApp channel And get all the basic information about the current events in this country.