Some residents Mexico City I spent New Year’s Eve in lines running down a street and around a corner, waiting to refill oxygen cans for relatives suffering from Covid-19, AP reports.
The city of 9 million has seen a surgeon in coronavirus infections and 87% are hospitalized, putting pressure on oxygen supply.
That has led to long lines and rising prices that make it difficult or impossible for some refills to refill tanks that, in some cases, last just a few hours.
Blanca Nina Méndez Rojas was waiting in line Thursday to refill a tank for her brother, who was recently released from a public hospital after his contract with Covid-19.
“We left it disconnected” [from oxygen], so he has to wait completely repeat so that he does not get up or have a problem, until we return with the tank, “said Mendez Rojas, noting” two weeks ago that re- filled 70 pesos ($ 3.50), and now it’s 150 pesos ($ 7.50) ”.
In a city where people are afraid to go to hospitals, and where those who go there have difficulty finding a bed, it becomes a matter of life and death.
Juan José Ledesma, who retired in Mexico City, fell ill with his wife and son. When his test came back positive on December 16, he had to stay at home – and contact a private doctor – as the local hospital had no place.
“I have been taking medication prescribed by a private doctor because as it happened we went to a health center and there was no place,” Ledesma said. “There was no place because there were too many people coming in” for treatment.
Since then, his son, who recovered, has to go out three or four times a day to try to refill his father ‘s oxygen tank.
“The price has gone up two or three times,” Ledesma said. Reflecting on the problem, he began to cry softly. “I think about rural areas, where things are tougher, harder, and where people have to wait longer, or they can’t afford it.”
Iván, an employee at an oxygen refill store who only gave his first name because his bosses hadn’t allowed him to speak to reporters, acknowledged that sometimes there were so many people waiting, with emergency for gas, they couldn’t fill everything in their cans completely.
“There are times when we don’t have enough oxygen to completely fill everyone’s tanks,” he said. “There are times when we need to reduce the replenishment, so that everyone in line can take at least some oxygen home to their relatives.”
To overcome the problems, city officials have not done much to deal with price increases that are doubling or doubling the price of refilling, but have closed a black market in which oxygen producers were level business selling cans for medical use. Industrial oxygen, used to operate acetylene flares, is not as real as the medical grade gas.
The city government has started a program to provide some people with oxygen cans or oxygen concentrators, which are machines that extract oxygen from the air and do not need to be refilled. But there is not enough to go around, and buying one of the appliances on the private market is too expensive for most households.
Before the pandemic began, basic equipment started around $ 900, but since then prices have risen to $ 1,500 or more.
“Prices for collectors have gone through the ceiling, there has been too much profit,” Méndez Rojas said.
