Peruvians are gasping for oxygen

Lima – While loved ones are fighting for breath at home, hundreds of Peruvians have taken to sleeping on the street, sometimes for days on end, in queues of people desperate for oxygen amid a deadly second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

In the night chill, they take cover in small tents, under blankets or sheets of cardboard outside Criogas, a small oxygen factory in the port city of El Callao near the capital Lima.

Hundreds of man-sized oxygen cylinders line the street outside the factory, each bearing the name of the person who brought it.

“Yesterday I stood in a long queue. I’ve been here since 5am yesterday. I arrived late because when I came, there were people who had already spent two or three days here,” said Yamil Antonio Suca.

The 25-year-old student said he hoped not to have to spend a second night sleeping rough, but did not expect to reach the front of the line by day’s end.

Going home empty handed is not an option.

“My father has Covid-19, he is 50 years old, he needs the oxygen,” Suca said.

Every morning, factory staff aided by police officers do the rounds, revise the waiting list and announce how many cylinders can be filled that day.

The factory has not increased its price, despite others hiking theirs by as much as 300% – a practice Health Minister Pilar Mazzetti has denounced as “truly criminal”.

At El Callao, people are willing to sleep rough for days on end, without bathroom access and some without food, to get their hands on the precious substance.

Many of the sick are being cared for at home, as hospitals have run short on beds.

As dawn breaks, hawkers come around offering a humble breakfast or simply a coffee.

Miguel Angel, 22, says he is number 124 in line.

“We have a member of the family, 89 years old, in a bad way, we do what we can for her,” he said.

He came with his cousin to take turns waiting in line.

Police were brought in to keep an eye on the hopeful buyers, prevent queue jumpers and thwart merchants seeking to take advantage of the special price reserved for individual customers.

The country of 33 million inhabitants has registered more than 1.1 million cases and over 40 000 deaths since March last year. –