Inappropriate use of the medical lane on the San Ysidro border crossing has caused a problematic spike in its traffic, especially since 2015.

Created over 4 years ago, the medical lane at the San Ysidro - Tijuana border crossing is meant for people with a medical pass to promote Mexico-to-U.S.A medical tourism and for those with a medical emergency, but the chief of Business Relations of Tijuana's Secretariat of Economic Development (Sedeti) pointed that the number of permits has gone up 20%.

Likewise, traffic on this lane has greatly increased; different requests have been made to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection to expand it into three different lanes. These passes are given to doctors, pharmacies, hotels and others, so common citizens do not usually have access to them, because special documents like surgery permits and cards are required.

In response to this problem, Tijuana's mayor Jorge Astiazarán promised to cooperate with the city's medical community to solve this issue. "The lane's purpose is to promote medical tourism and we will supervise that those passes are not being misused", said Astiazarán.

This refers to a situation in 2011 when over 250 "cloned" passes where detected, and most were being used for non-medical purposes, as well as non-U.S. citizens or tourists.

On Sundays, it's a common sight that the medical lane traffic stretches well into the business area of Tijuana, and street access to adjacent neighborhoods has been blocked on occasions to add another lane.

Via El Sol de Tijuana

and El Economista.

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miranda.garcia@sandiegored.com

Translated by axel.alcala@sandiegored.com