Remedios Ramirez Facio (73), who has pancreatic cancer, lives with her husband on a small plot of land in Atitalaquia, a village in the state of Hidalgo in Central Mexico. In all of Hidalgo, home to more than 2.5 million people, there is not a single public hospital that offers palliative care; many of the local doctors have no idea what palliative care even is. Thus, Ramirez has to travel, with her daughter, Orlanda Hernandez Ramirez Remedios, 44, every few weeks to go to the National Cancer Institute, a trip that takes almost the entire day.
