(Lima) Pays qui compte le plus grand nombre de morts au monde par rapport à sa population, le Pérou a rendu jeudi hommage aux 551 médecins morts de la COVID-19, soit plus 6 % de la profession.
Sur les grilles du siège national de l’Ordre des médecins, leurs portraits ont été accrochés et la rue rebaptisée « Paseo de los Heroes ».
Un obélisque en marbre de trois mètres de haut a également été érigé dans cette rue paisible du quartier touristique de Miraflores, dans le sud de la capitale péruvienne.
« Les médecins qui sont ici sont des héros en blouse blanche […] because they gave their lives to save some. Without a mask, without conditions of protection, they faced the pandemic, ”declared the President of the Order, Raul Urquizo.
On each portrait are indicated the name, age – often young – and the region where the doctors practiced.
A huge black ribbon bars the facade of the yellow building of the Medical College, which brings together the 90,000 doctors in the country. The Peruvian flag has been half-masted.
On the marble obelisk, a plaque pays homage to the deceased: “may your sacrifice forever illuminate the practice of medicine in Peru”.
Eduardo Izquierdo Valderrama, 64, and Elita Bocanegra, 59, came to reflect in front of the portrait of their son, the Dr Elias Eduardo Izquierdo Bocanegra, 40, died on 1er September 2020, as Peru faced a devastating first wave of the pandemic.
“I said to him ‘son, rest, ask for rest’, he said to me ‘daddy, the cowards abandon the ship, I will fight to the end and I will show that in good Loreto [habitant de la région amazonienne de Loreto] that I am, I am not afraid ”, says Eduardo.
“They should be alive, they have been neglected by our government,” grumbles the grieving father, who criticizes Peru’s delay in obtaining vaccines and the chronic under-equipment of the health sector.
“Not prepared”
According to data from the Latin American Medical Confederation, Peru has the highest number of doctors who have died from COVID-19 in the region (131 in Colombia, or 19 in Chile).
Although Brazil has 891 deceased doctors, its population is seven times that of Peru.
“A lot of doctors died, first because the state didn’t protect them with clothes and medicine, and second because hospitals needed a lot of professionals for emergency care,” says Dr.r Urquizo.
“The hospitals were not prepared for this type of pandemic,” adds the President of the Order.
The Dr Erick Orlando Cruz Mamani, who is a COVID-19 survivor, says that “when the situation got out of hand, the provision of protective equipment was minimal”.
“We had to use the same mask for almost a week, compared to a few hours,” he said.
With 6,111 deaths per million population, Peru has the highest per capita pandemic death rate in the world, according to AFP, based on official figures.
The Andean country of 33 million people has more than two million cases and more than 201,000 deaths from the coronavirus.