RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Scenes of desperation, worry, and tears are seen at the doors of hospitals in the Bolivian region of Cochabamba, in the center of the country, which is hard hit by the third wave of covid-19 and where the scarce medical oxygen that is available does not last and health services are overwhelmed.
One of the places in a particularly critical situation is the Hospital del Norte in Cochabamba, Bolivia’s fourth-largest city, with a population of 650,000 and a metropolitan region of 1.6 million and capital of the region of the same name, where the arrival of oxygen gives momentary respite to staff and patients.
The health center, which is one of the referents for treating the disease in that city, activated the “red alert” the day before because it ran out of oxygen, the hospital’s director, Cinthia Rojas, explained to Efe on Tuesday.
“We have been given six tons of oxygen that will allow us to be calm until Thursday. The hospital has an oxygen requirement of one and a half tons,” she said.
Being a second-level hospital, this center has received most of the sick people in the city, which made its “oxygen requirement much higher, much larger”, said Rojas.
The hospital has seven intensive care beds and another twelve intermediate care beds, “which have been saturated for more than a month now,” he lamented.
Added to this is a “gap of 312 staff members” that it should have to function at its maximum capacity, Rojas added.
At the doors of the hospital, people are waiting expectantly for the arrival of oxygen for their relatives who have been admitted, while others are waiting for a space to be opened to receive care.
SUFFERING FAMILIES
The situation is similar at the Benigno Sanchez Hospital in the neighboring city of Quillacollo, where relatives of the sick roam around in search of oxygen and with desperate requests to the authorities.
“My brother wants to live, he is desperate and is struggling at the moment, mercy please,” said Isabel, whose relative is infected, in tears.
The woman commented that in addition to requiring oxygen, they are suffering to find the medicines that her brother, who is the father of five children, requires and are even looking for them without success through relatives and friends who live in other regions.
“We have no money, we are poor people, we cannot pay so many costs, and they cannot profit from people’s health,” he lamented.
The lack of oxygen, the saturation of hospitals, and the shortage of medicines are consequences of the third wave that has been sweeping the country since May and which has particularly hit regions such as Cochabamba, which the day before reported 915 new infections, and the eastern Santa Cruz, the largest in the country, with 758.
The country has accumulated 14,524 deaths and 371,279 infections of the disease since March 2020.
THE OFFICIAL VOICE
The Bolivian government announced that the first 20 tons of the 320 tons of medical oxygen acquired in Brazil are on their way. The purchase of oxygen-generating plants is being analyzed.
The Vice Minister of Foreign Trade, Benjamín Blanco, explained in a press conference that they could transport 40 tons per week to Bolivia, so the first 20 tons are already on their way.
He also indicated that they are in meetings with representatives of Argentina to acquire medical oxygen and that a proposal was sent to the Bolivian Ministry of Health for the purchase of 13 portable oxygen generating plants.
These plants would be transported by ship and are expected to arrive in the country in one to two months if their acquisition is finalized, said Blanco.