MEXICO .- At 16 years, Ana Paola Romero knew what it is to fall into bankruptcy due to the pandemic when nine family members between parents , uncles, nephews and relatives got sick with COVID – 19 and she had to sell his hair of 73 centimeters for the oxygen tank of his grandfather as part of the expenses that went to give to certain companies.
Companies that replace or complement the State in the care of disease and other essential requirements in times of the corononavirus: hospitals, ventilators, funeral services, oxygen tanks …
Given the saturation of public hospitals, Mexicans resort to to private ones when they can pay them, even acquiring deu days, selling properties such as houses or cars, among other emergency actions.
Ana Paola’s family had already disbursed around 2, 000 dollars to attend to when the grandfather was complicated and that is why he could not pay for his oxygen until the girl put her hair to auction on social networks.
“I I’d rather lose my hair than lose my grandpa. My hair grows back anyway, ”she said on Facebook. “My name is Ana Paola Romero, I am 16 years old, I am a fourth-semester high school student at the University from Guadalajara, but I’ve been living in Toluca in the State of Mexico for two months. ”
In the end, the girl managed to gather around 125 dollars (in its equivalent in pesos) and thus buy his grandfather’s oxygen which, in the end, was not as expensive as it was calculated. In times of SARS-Cov-2, health care related to the pandemic is almost a luxury in Mexico.
To begin with, the test is not free and although the total cost of a private hospitalization for Covid – 19 depends on the severity of the patient and the services required during the hospitalization, hospitals require a deposit of minimum 20, 000 dollars, based on cost average estimated by the Mexican Association of Insurance Institutions (AMIS).
If the patient requires care in intensive medical care units, the cost rises to an average of 46,000 Dollars and, finally, if the person needs even more attention, such as intubation, the rate increases to 100,000 Dollars.
In high-level hospitals, prices go up to double or triple, depending on the state of the country because there is no more rules than supply and demand that disadvantage vulnerable communities.
This was acknowledged by AMIS in a press release. “In Chiapas, paying a day of hospitalization in a private sanatorium, a person sick with COVID – 19 would have they have to allocate their salary for one year and two months. ”
Mexico reported unpublished data on deaths in the last hours, exceeding one and a half million infections and more of 134, deaths accumulated with a 6% lethality, according to official statistics, although it speaks of a sub register. The whole picture with complications due to the lack of adequate care or the saturation of public hospitals.
OXYGEN TO THE BIDDER
When a COVID patient – 19 is not serious, Mexican doctors prefer to send him home for his recovery in the understood that if oxygen was required, the Mexican Institute of Seguro Social should provide them without any distinction. But it has not happened like this in the day to day.
When requesting it, many patients realized that they were asked for a number of affiliation with which they did not have. Or they never responded to his calls or communications over the internet. That is why they ended up on their own in a tortuous search for oxygen tanks in an unregulated market.
The head of the Federal Consumer Prosecutor’s Office (Profeco), Ricardo Sheffield, acknowledged that some distributors have sold industrial oxygen containers as if it were for human consumption. These businesses were closed in an inspection of the companies after several complaints.
The Commission The Congress of the Union issued an exhortation to Profeco to verify the companies dedicated to the sale, rental and filling of medical oxygen tanks, in order to avoid damage to health and irregular prices.
“Mechanisms and strategies must be strengthened to monitor the regulation, surveillance and permanent verification of companies, distributors and establishments that market, sell, rent and fill medicinal oxygen tanks,” he says The point of agreement approved.
In recent days, the Head of Government of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum, announced that she signed an agreement with the largest oxygen company in the country ( Infra) so that it takes tanks home for free for as long as necessary, but it is believed that it will not be enough.
Est he situation is experienced in various entities, not only in Mexico City and the State of Mexico, where there is the greatest demand due to the increase in infections and where relatives asked the government to intervene because as the pandemic progresses, the price of oxygen has been increasing along with new businesses of dubious quality.
The use of this gas tanks compensates for the loss of oxygenation of the lungs because SARS-CoV-2 has the ability to generate damage to the alveoli of the lungs that are responsible for absorbing air to integrate oxygen into the bloodstream
“Please, we need an oxygen tank”, ” Does anyone know where to get one? ”,“ I beg you to help me find someone to sell me an oxygen tank ”… it reads on social networks.
FANS, Coffin, VACCINES …
The suppliers of basic necessities in the pandemic strain their offers in the same way as those who demand them: in sales groups and in the Facebook marketplace even if they do not have the required health permits.
Within the social network they can be found Uni-Vent Eagle brand fans for 2, 500 dollars from an address of the populous Iztapalapa neighborhood or a Bird brand respirator, Mark 7 model, from 2016, for 750 dollars or empty or loaded oxygen tanks at prices inflated by resale that causes excess demand.
The economy has given essential items and supplies for the treatment of COVID – 19 the opportunity for a buoyant business in both the underground and underground markets.
A web page tried in recent days to impersonate Pfizer’s site in Mexico in order to “sell” the drug’s vaccine against Covid- 19, according to the announcement on the page www.pfizermx.com about which the Undersecretary of Health Hugo López Gatell issued an alert and reminder that the antidote will be free in Mexico.
Meanwhile, other businesses have been overwhelmed by demand: funeral homes. The sustained growth of deaths and the bureaucracy for the cremation, has complicated them. More recently, they run the risk of running out of coffins, according to businessmen in the field.
Roberto García, vice president of the National Association of Funeral Directors, said there is a shortage of raw material such as steel and wood and that, if there is no decrease in cases in the coming months, there will not be enough production of coffins or spaces for cremation
“All the pathology areas are full and the crematoria are not enough to cremate so many people who have passed away. ”
Faced with such a situation and with the body in the arms because in hospitals they ask to remove the deceased as soon as he takes his last breath, the relatives of people who died of Covid – 19 are also resorting to burial, for which the coffins are once again in demand for burial with hearse that come and go with new clients.
Keep reading: Mexico facing the challenge of vaccination without cheating, nepotism, cronyism …