The Collapse of Healthcare in Peru
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- Published on Tuesday, 04 August 2020 02:08
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2161 ... August 4, 2020
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The Collapse of Healthcare in Peru
Yanis Iqbal
On 11 March 2020, Peru declared a 90-day national sanitary emergency. Subsequently, the country announced a total lockdown beginning 16 March, 2020. Despite implementing one of the earliest and strictest COVID-19 containment lockdowns in Latin America, Peru has gotten trapped in the turmoil of rising COVID-19 cases. With more than 420,000 Coronavirus cases, Peru has become the third-worst hit country in Latin America. The country also has the highest excess death rates (count of deaths relative to a normal year) with the number of deaths between 16 March and 31 May being 87 per cent more than a normal year.
The current COVID-19 catastrophe in Peru is a natural corollary of an unbridled process of the self-valorization of capital. As a result of this aggressive accumulation of capital, the healthcare sector in today’s Peru is teetering on the edge of an abyss. In this country, "public health facilities for molecular testing are sparse and only 500 beds in intensive care units exist for a population of... 32 million." Further, private hospitals are charging $3000 per day for Coronavirus care, a price that is absurd if we take cognizance of the fact that 1 out of every 5 Peruvian is impoverished, earning less than $105 per month. Discontented with and devastated by the massive deficiencies of public hospitals and the avarice of the private sector, Peruvians have taken to the streets to demonstrate against these patent injustices.
In the southern city of Arequipa, people agitated against Peru’s President Martin Vizcarra who had come to visit the Honorio Delgado Hospital. It was during these protests that Celia Capira ran after the president’s motorcade, desperately shouting "Mr. President, don’t go." Capira’s 57-year old husband, Adolfo Mamani, had been kept in a bedraggled tent outside the Honorio Delgado Hospital, where he died on 21 July, 2020. While running behind the president’s vehicle, Capira said, "Mr. President, you have to go to the tent, don’t leave the hospital until you’ve seen the condition [patients] are in."