Economist Alejandro Arrieta Herrera announced today that unnecessary cesarean sections in Peru’s private clinics have created a surcharge of $6.7 million annually. Arrieta, who is a fellow at the Institute for Health at Rutgers University, added that employers and independent users of private health insurance are compensating for the surcharge by paying overpriced premiums.
According to Agencia Andina, Arrieta said 50 percent of births in private clinics are cesarean. However the rate jumps to 70 percent when the women have private health insurance. The World Health Organization has reportedly said that no country should have a cesarean rate above 15 percent.
A cesarean can be a lifesaving operation for both mothers and baby’s when necessary, says the California-based International Cesarean Awareness Network, ICAN. However, they can also “double a woman’s rate of hysterectomy, blood transfusion, admission to intensive care, prolonged hospital stay and death, compared to mothers who delivered vaginally.” The ICAN adds that babies born by cesarean are 41 percent more likely to die than babies born vaginally.
According to Arrieta, Peru’s overuse of cesarean sections is due to a 1997 reform that created Health Provider Entities, EPS, which increased the financial incentives for clinics to use more expensive clinical and diagnostic procedures. “Unjustified cesareans have increased in order to compensate for the deterioration of medical funds caused by the reform” said Arrieta.
More than 13,000 women are annually subjected to preventable cesarean sections in Peru.
