MEXICO CITY – On New Year’s Day, dozens of people lined up with empty oxygen tanks in one of Mexico City’s hardest hit neighborhoods to take advantage of a city offering of free oxygen refills for COVID-19 patients.
Jorge Infante took his place in the queue at 8am with three tanks he wanted to fill for sick family members. He had only heard about the offer via Facebook on the third day Friday.
The demand for oxygen as the virus spreads through the capital of 9 million residents has pushed prices up and created long queues. Infante said his family would save about $ 45 a day by having his three tanks filled for free.
Iztapalapa, the capital’s largest city and one of the hardest hit by the pandemic, is a vast area with few resources.
“The economic conditions are not world first,” said Carlos Morales, Iztapalapa’s health director. “That means people suffer to get hold of tanks.”
Morales said they are trying to fill about 50 tanks a day.
Elsewhere in the capital, some residents spent New Year’s Eve in rows winding down a street and around a corner, waiting for oxygen bottles to be refilled for family members suffering from COVID-19.
Blanca Nina Méndez Rojas lined up on Thursday to refill a tank for her brother, who was recently released from a public hospital after contracting COVID-19.
“We just left him disconnected (from oxygen), so he has to lie back completely so he doesn’t get irritated or have a problem, until we come back with the tank,” said Méndez Rojas, noting “two weeks ago a refill price 70 peso ($ 3.50), and now it’s 150 peso ($ 7.50). “
In a city where people are afraid of going to hospitals, and where those who are going to have trouble finding a bed, it becomes a matter of life and death.
Juan José Ledesma, a retiree in Mexico City, fell ill, along with his wife and son. When his test came back positive on December 16, he had to stay home – and see a private doctor – because the local hospital had no room.
“I am taking drugs prescribed by a private doctor because what happened was we went to a health center and there was no room,” Ledesma said. “There was no room because too many people came” for treatment.
Since then, his son – in recovery – had 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,” said Ledesma. Thinking about the problem, he began to cry softly. “I’m thinking of rural areas, where it’s harder and harder and people have to wait longer, or they really can’t afford it.”
Iván, an oxygen tank employee who only gave his first name because his bosses had not allowed him to speak to reporters, acknowledged that sometimes so many people were waiting, desperate for gas, that they couldn’t fill everything. their buses completely.
“There are times when we don’t have enough oxygen to fill all the tanks completely,” he said. “There are times when we need to reduce the refill so that everyone on the phone can at least bring some oxygen to their family.”
To fix the problems, city officials have done little to combat price hikes that doubled or tripled the price of a refill – but they closed a black market where industrial oxygen manufacturers were selling medical jerry cans. Industrial oxygen, which is used to operate acetylene torches, is not as pure as the medical grade gas.
The city government has started a program to give some people oxygen canisters or oxygen concentrators, which are machines that extract oxygen from the air and do not need to be refilled. But there isn’t enough to walk around, and buying one of the machines from the private market is prohibitively expensive for most families.
Before the pandemic, base machines started at around $ 900, but prices have since risen to $ 1,500 or more.
“Prices for concentrators have risen dramatically, too much profit has been made,” said Méndez Rojas.