Quintana Roo to Open Specialized Mental Health Wing at Cancún Hospital

Cancún, Quintana Roo — Quintana Roo will open a specialized mental health wing at the Jesús Kumate Rodríguez General Hospital in Cancún, addressing what officials call a historic gap in the state’s healthcare system.

Governor Mara Lezama and Alejandro Svarch, head of IMSS-Bienestar (the Mexican Social Security Institute’s public health program), announced the new facility, which will be part of the hospital’s new specialty tower in Benito Juárez municipality. They said the wing represents a fundamental advance toward comprehensive, third-level medical services with a humanistic approach.

“For many years this was a deficiency. Today it is a reality: Quintana Roo will have a mental health wing, great news for those facing these conditions who didn’t know where to turn,” Lezama said.

Svarch explained that the facility follows World Health Organization recommendations by moving away from institutional confinement models toward integrated, dignified, and humanized clinical areas designed for specialized mental health care.

“Asylums no longer exist. There are clinically appropriate spaces to treat mental illness for what it is: just another illness that should be treated without stigma,” he emphasized.

The wing will feature separate areas for men, women, and children, including pediatric psychiatry services. It will be staffed around the clock by specialists including psychologists, psychiatrists, and neurologists to ensure continuous, multidisciplinary care.

Svarch noted the project also aims to combat the historical stigmatization of mental health conditions, even within healthcare services, by adopting an integrated, humanistic vision focused on both patients and their families.

Lezama stressed that the new wing responds to a painful reality many families faced, where lack of specialized care forced them to seek treatment in other states or, in extreme cases, abandon treatment altogether.

“Listening to the human being, addressing their condition, and supporting the family is part of this humanist government’s commitment with a feminist heart,” she concluded.