The paucity of clinical ethics committees in Peru

Abstract

Peru, an upper-middle-income country located in South America, 1 has experienced a boost in the creation and development of research ethics committees in its public health care institutions in the last two decades. 2,3 However, the situation for clinical or care ethics committees is worrying.Recently, aspects related to the creation, regulations, and evolution of the different types of clinical or care ethics committees (top-down type, bottom-up type) have been reported in the countries of the region such as Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, and Chile. 4,5 However, this has not been the case in Peru. I performed a systematic literature search (illustrated in Figure 1) to obtain evidence of this situation, 6 in which I found no manuscripts related to the topic of these committees in Peru. However, when reviewing the recent historic Peruvian judicial decision, upon appeal, to respect the right for euthanasia requested by Ana Estrada Ugarte, 45, who has suffered from a degenerative disease since she was 12 years old, I identified a single Peruvian committee of clinical ethics at the National Institute of Children's Health, a specialized pediatrics institution in the Peruvian capital city of Lima. 7 This is a matter of concern because Peru has 23,905 health facilities in its territory, of which 577 are hospitals. 8