MEXICO CITY – On New Year’s Day, dozens of people lined up with empty oxygen tanks in one of Mexico City’s hardest-hit municipalities to take advantage of a free oxygen refill offer for COVID-patients. 19 of the city.
Jorge Infante took his place in the row at 8 a.m. with three tanks he wanted to fill for sick relatives. I had known the offer only on Friday the third day via Facebook.
Oxygen demand as the virus spreads through the capital of 9 million residents has raised prices and caused the lines to lengthen. Infante said filling his three tanks for free would save his family about $ 45 a day.
Iztapalapa, the largest district in the capital and one of the hardest hit by the pandemic, is a low-resource area.
“Economic conditions are not the first world,” said Carlos Morales, Iztapalapa’s health director. “That means people are suffering from getting tanks.”
Morales said they try to fill about 50 tanks a day.
Elsewhere in the capital, some residents spent New Year’s Eve in lines meandering down a street and around a corner, waiting to refill the oxygen containers for relatives suffering from COVID -19.
Blanca Nina Méndez Rojas was waiting in line on Thursday to fill a tank for her brother, who was recently discharged from a public hospital after hiring COVID-19.
“We just left him disconnected (from the oxygen), so he has to stay completely reclined so he doesn’t get agitated or have any problems, until we get back with the tank,” said Méndez Rojas, who noted. two weeks ago a top-up cost was 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 will go have trouble finding a bed, it becomes a matter of life or death.
Juan José Ledesma, a retiree from Mexico City, became ill with his wife and son. When the test came back positive on Dec. 16, he had to stay home (and consult a private doctor) because the local hospital had no room.
“I have been taking medication prescribed by a private doctor because what happened was that we went to a health center and there was no space,” Ledesma said. “There was no space because too many people came in” to receive treatment.
Since then, her son, who has recovered, has had to go out three or four times a day to try to fill 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 in rural areas, where things are getting tougher and people have to wait longer or they really can’t afford it.”
Ivan, an employee of an oxygen refill shop who only gave his first name because his bosses had not allowed him to speak to reporters, acknowledged that sometimes there were so many people waiting, desperate for the gasoline, which could not fill all its containers 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 recharging, so everyone who is online can bring at least some oxygen to their relatives’ homes.”
To end the problems, city officials have done little to combat price hikes that doubled or tripled the price of a refill, but have closed a black market in which industrial-grade oxygen producers sold drums for for medical use. Industrial oxygen, which is used to power acetylene torches, is not as pure as medical grade gas.
The city government has started a program to give some people oxygen jars or oxygen concentrators, which are machines that extract oxygen from the air and do not need to refill. But it is not enough to drive, and buying one of the machines on the private market is prohibitively expensive for most families.
Before the pandemic, basic machines started at around $ 900, but since then prices have risen to $ 1,500 or more.
“Concentrator prices have gone through the roof, there has been too much profit,” Méndez Rojas said.