IQUITOS: BEHIND THE COVID HEALTH CRISIS LIES A CLASS DIFFERENCE

Manolo Berjón

Miguel Angel Cadenas

Inmaculada Parish - Iquitos

“It was awful; my cousins told me that they wrapped [my aunt and uncle] in plastic bags. ‘Like a dog,’ they said. And then someone picked them up at 9 p.m. They don’t know where they are buried. Until after the quarantine is over.” The couple died at home. Recounted by a religious sister who is a friend, a native of Iquitos.

The animator of one of the parish’s Christian communities calls to tell us that someone we know has died in Masusa, the neighborhood surrounding Iquitos’ main river port. The person died at home, with all the symptoms of covid, but never went to the hospital. That person’s brother-in-law died last week. He had been diagnosed with covid, but also died at home. We ask the animator to make a short video telling about what is happening on the periphery. He breaks down in tears, and we weep with him.

Masusa, May 08, 2020

He cannot make a video describing such sad events. He also fears that people will make fun of them: “It’s your own fault – go screw yourselves,” people tell them. When police and soldiers were patrolling the neighborhood to keep residents from leaving their houses, people ignored them. On the last day, the soldiers told them, “Now you’re on your own. If you die, it’s your own fault.” They left and never returned. “I can’t make the video you are asking me for,” the animator says. Then he adds, “The same thing is happening along the road [between Iquitos and Nauta], where my mother lives.”

How many deaths on the periphery will never be counted? These are people and they must be taken into account as people. It is unfair to blame them for their illness. The State is not fulfilling its function: “the right to health.” We have noted in the past the State’s failure to communicate about the coronavirus in a way that people understand.

The animator adds, “Before, when I lived on the Huallaga River, when a person died we would fire a gun into the air so everyone would know that someone had died. If we did that now in Iquitos, it would be terrible — we wouldn’t be able to sleep.”

Centering attention on the hospitals leaves the periphery of the city out of focus. We must open our eyes. Neighborhood Health Posts can do important work. But do they have the tools they need to provide care? It is crucial to decentralize, to go to the periphery, to provide health care with criteria that go beyond the Western view. People’s lives are at stake.

A few days ago, another person we know and trust told us how a neighbor in one of the neighborhoods behind the EsSalud Hospital died of covid. His family wanted to hold the wake at home, but the head of the neighborhood association called the police and they took the body away. An elderly man in the same neighborhood died with all the symptoms of covid, although he was never diagnosed. A few days later, in the same area, a 7-year-old boy died of dengue. An amalgam of epidemics. The family couldn’t find a cemetery where they could bury him. They spent an anguished day looking for a cemetery before they finally found one and were able to bury him.

A catechist calls. Her brother-in-law has died of a “sudden chill.” He had been perfectly healthy. He got up at night to go outside to urinate. He suffered a heart attack. They do not have enough money to bury him in a cemetery. They tried to cross the Nanay River, but the communities on the other bank would not allow them to land. They threatened the family, brandishing poles. The family had to abandon the coffin …

Focusing the news on hospitals, medicine and oxygen has a strong class component: “the middle class of Iquitos.” But most people on the periphery do not go to the hospital, nor can they afford medicines with prohibitive prices, much less fight to obtain a tank of oxygen on the black market. The health crisis, as it is being described, reflects only the terrible pain of the middle class. The reality is much harsher. We have abandoned the periphery to its own devices. This could explain why people on the periphery do not follow the quarantine orders. They are — and will continue to be — excluded from any possible improvements in the health system, to which they do not have access.

Translate by Barbara Fraser. 

Thanks.