Narrator: Demand for oxygen in Peru
has exceeded supply.
With hospitals running out
during the country's punishing second COVID wave,
families have to buy their own.
A single cylinder can cost up to $400 on the black market.
The lack of oxygen helps makes Peru
the country with the world's highest death rate
per capita from COVID-19.
Thousands have died in Lima in recent months,
and this is where many of them end up —
the vast Virgen de Lourdes cemetery.
That's Lenin Froilan.
He spent more than $6,000 on oxygen
to try to help his mother
before she died from COVID.
Narrator: How did this happen,
and why is medical oxygen so expensive?
We met Lenin standing in line
to get oxygen for his mother
one day before she died.
He had been waiting since 4 a.m.
Narrator: This plant
on the southern outskirts of the capital
offers free medical oxygen
to those with a prescription,
but the wait is anywhere from 12 to 15 hours.
People eat and sleep in line until it's their turn.
They're only allowed to fill one 10-cubic-meter cylinder
every 48 hours.
That won't do for Lenin's family.
A patient with severe COVID-19
needs up to three cylinders a day.
His three sisters have COVID, too,
so he's had to spend thousands of dollars
on additional cylinders wherever he can find them.
Lenin sells furniture
and earns about $650 a month,
so he's relied on the last of his savings.
Narrator: So why don't Peru's hospitals have oxygen?
In most of North America and Europe,
companies mass-produce medical oxygen
and deliver it in liquid form by tanker.
Liquid oxygen is more dense
and kept in large vessels at very low temperatures.
Hospitals then pipe it directly to the beds of patients.
The pandemic has caused oxygen shortages
in places like Brazil, Mexico, and India
as hospitals struggle to keep up with demand.
Prices skyrocketed in countries
that lack health infrastructure
and relied on oxygen cylinders,
which are more expensive.
Narrator: Bulk oxygen piped into hospitals
costs as little as one-tenth as much as oxygen in cylinders.
It's like paying for bottled water
instead of getting it from the tap.
At peak times in April and May,
Peru fell short
of nearly 40,000 cylinders of oxygen every day.
At one point, neighboring Chile
sent liquid oxygen to help,
but it did not fill the gap.
Overwhelmed hospitals in Lima
ran out of beds in February.
Patients lined up outside to get oxygen,
but with thousands of severe cases a day,
hospitals ran out.
Narrator: Families took it upon themselves
to look after their loved ones
and began shopping for cylinders.
Homes started to look like hospitals
with medical equipment lying around.
Narrator: Marisol got sick
caring for her parents at home,
but she didn't stop helping them.
Narrator: So how do people in Peru buy oxygen?
Companies couldn't produce enough oxygen
as the second wave hit in February,
so black market operators like this man
stepped in to meet demand.
Narrator: Now he exchanges
empty cylinders for full ones
and charges up to $400 for a full cylinder.
Narrator: This small factory in Lima
has also raised prices,
just not as high as the black market.
A 10-cubic-meter cylinder
that used to cost $16 to fill
is now $70.
Narrator: Oxiromero began making its own oxygen
using a technique known as pressure swing adsorption
to extract oxygen from the air.
But that only allows them
to fill about 20 tanks at a time.
Narrator: Oxiromero would need to overhaul the plant
to produce more oxygen,
and that's out of reach during the pandemic.
Narrator: At the Virgen de Lourdes cemetery,
Lenin laid his mother to rest
alongside hundreds of other victims
of Peru's second wave.
Narrator: Lenin says it's hard to be hopeful
with his sisters still fighting the virus.