LA PAZ: Zulma Hinojosa waits anxiously in a doctor’s office at La Paz’s Children’s Hospital for her 13-year-old son, who suffers from asthma and heart problems.
Oxygen and medicines are in short supply at hospitals in the city following nearly a month of blockades and protests against the Bolivian government, and she worries he will not get the treatment he needs.
Hinojosa broke down in tears as she recounted the difficulties of getting her son to the hospital from El Alto, a suburb of La Paz, where they live at an altitude of 4,150 meters (13,600 feet).
It is difficult to navigate the debris that protesters are using to block the city with a child with asthma and a heart murmur, the 44-year-old mother told AFP.
“I can’t expose him to this stress, to walking so much, because he’s on medication,” she said, adding that the trip “is a real ordeal.”
