The Devasting Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Peru: The Undermining Role of Vertical Health Policies in Health Systems

Why does a state like Peru, dedicated to fulfilling development goals and sustained good macroeconomic performance, appear incapable of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic? Using the case of maternal mortality, this chapter argues that the tremendous impact of the pandemic is rooted in the adoption of health policy reforms that prioritized targets, vertical programmes, and an empty understanding of health coverage over quality, the need for social change, and the strengthening of the system as a whole. This approach to health policy is part of the global indicator culture of international development. It oversimplifies complex health problems such as the high number of maternal deaths, narrowing it to focusing on certain indicators without analysing their feasibility. This approach to policy-making is a form of exercising state power and structural violence that has created a weak health system that cannot rapidly restructure and deliver care to pregnant women in remote areas.