LIMA | A precarious health system suffering from chronic underinvestment, poor families and overcrowded housing: this explosive cocktail has made Peru the country holding the sad world record for death from the coronavirus.
• Read also: All developments in the COVID-19 pandemic
With 87 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, according to data established by AFP from official figures, Peru overtook Belgium last week (85), after the latter revised down the number of deaths due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
For the government, one of the main reasons for this rate is the authorities’ concern for “transparency”, which is based on an accounting system that is among “the best” in Latin America.
“In the most remote areas, doctors send the figures (of deaths) by telephone”, explained the Minister of Health, Pilar Mazzetti.
But for Farid Matuk, an expert in statistics, other factors led to this record despite a confinement of more than 100 days and a night curfew still in force: “The lack of infrastructure, the absence of the State , the lack of social order, ”he lists.
“No beds”
With 652,037 confirmed cases and 28,944 deaths, Peru is the third most bereaved country in Latin America after Brazil (212 million inhabitants) and Mexico (128 million inhabitants).
But with 33 million inhabitants, it is far less populated than the two giants.
“Our health system is precarious. We lack 16,000 specialists at the national level ”, explains to AFP the president of the Federation of Peruvian Doctors, Godofredo Talavera.
“We lack hospitals, health centers, medicines, laboratories. Many people are dying at home for fear of coming to the hospital or because there are no beds or ventilators, ”he laments.
Last week, thousands of doctors mobilized for two days to denounce the lack of means and protective equipment to face the pandemic, while 146 of them died of COVID-19.
“There is a lack of attention paid to the health sector, which is a chronic problem,” said Mr Talavera. “For 40 years, we have had a precarious health system”, adds Dr Vidmar Mengoa, president of the order of doctors of the Andean region of Puno (south-east).
Patients in their car
Peru has only 1,600 intensive care beds across the country and has faced severe shortages of medical oxygen.
Media reported that at the height of the crisis in some areas, COVID-19 patients slept in tents near hospitals and others spent the night in their cars parked nearby, hoping to ‘get a bed and be cared for.
At the end of July, the video of a woman in tears running behind the convoy of President Martin Vizcarra, visiting Arequipa (south), to implore a hospital bed for her dying husband, went viral. Her husband died two days later.
In fact, many patients accessed intensive care too late, when they were already in serious condition. The death rate in intensive care in Peru has reached 50%, indicates on condition of anonymity an expert from an international organization based in Lima.
Despite the robust economic growth seen in recent decades, a fifth of the Peruvian population lives below the poverty line and millions of people lack access to safe drinking water.
Informality is also the rule for 70% of workers and housing is often overcrowded.
“The informal causes Peruvians to take to the streets to work in the absence of sustainable livelihoods and a segment of the population does not understand the importance of washing their hands, the correct use of masks, distancing social “, explains Guillermo Contreras, resuscitator.
Last week, a stampede at a nightclub in Lima resulted in the death of 13 people trying to flee the police, who came to enforce the curfew. About 120 people attended the anniversary party despite the ban on weekend gatherings.