A recent report by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), entitled Deadly Delays: Maternal Mortality in Peru, A Rights-Based Approach to Safe Motherhood, addresses the vast health care disparities in Peru.
The fact that Peru has the second highest maternal mortality rate in all of South America reveals not only the failings of the health care system but also “the social exclusion faced by rural, especially indigenous, women.” In Peru, over 1,200 women die in childbirth each year. As a PHR publication notes, the absence of quality emergency obstetric care can lead to three crucial “delays”: delays in seeking care, arriving at care, and finally, delays in reception of proper care once at a facility.
While this analysis alone is striking, in the report, PHR gives voice to seven individual victims of pregnancy-related complications, thereby providing a face for the severity of maternal mortality in Peru. PHR researchers write of the stark case of Pabla, who desperately tried to deliver at hospital but still died in the room where her own mother had also died giving birth. Along with the stories of five other women, the researchers also revealed the terrible outcome when Melania’s midwife never arrived at her home. Maternal mortality in Peru, the report illustrates, represents the ways in which the health system exacerbates the health concerns among the already marginalized indigenous and poor women, drawing clear parallels to the endemic gender discrimination and poverty throughout the nation. By leaving the reader and the international community with crucial recommendations for change, we are given hope that with timely, conscientious action, change can occur in Peru.
To read the full report and list of recommendations go to:
Physicians for Human Rights Report
It seems very critical that the authors of this Physicians for Human Rights publication chose to include stories of real women left behind by the health care system in Peru. So often, the victims of these poor health situations become statistics, but it is only on a truly human level that we can grasp the hardships that these women undergo daily.