Protests in Bolivia: the shortage of oxygen and food worsens the health crisis in hospitals

Bolivia is facing a health crisis in its public hospitals where the medical centers of La Paz are rationing medicinal oxygen, postponing surgeries, and cutting back on the feeding of their patients after 16 days of road blockades that isolate the country’s capital.

The road blockades, promoted by the Bolivian Workers’ Union (COB) and the Tupac Katari Federation of Campesinos, demand the resignation of President Rodrigo Paz and a 20% salary increase that the president considers unfeasible. The pressure intensified after the violent protests on Monday, which led to a pitched battle in front of the Government Palace and left at least 11 police officers injured, with more than 100 detainees.

At the Hospital de la Mujer, its director, Janett Aliaga, demanded a rational use of oxygen in the neonatology unit, where there are 29 babies, with reserves available for just seven days. In its intensive care unit there are five women whose evolution depends on that supply.

“Health has no political color. Please, I ask you, open this humanitarian corridor, allow us the passage of food, of oxygen. We have premature babies who absolutely need oxygen to live”, Aliaga stated.

Adults and children wait at the Dr. Ovidio Aliaga Uría pediatric hospital in La Paz, one of the medical centers affected by the road blockades against the government of Rodrigo Paz, on May 20, 2026.

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The Children’s Hospital has guaranteed 36 hours of oxygen for 57 hospitalized children. The shortage also affects those who have already been discharged. Magaly Quispe, 38 years old, arrived at the clinic with her baby Arón, who had heart surgery at birth, carrying him in one arm while with the other she held a personal oxygen tube that lasts eight hours. She had to go through several roadblocks from El Alto in the early hours of the morning to get to the medical appointment. The Bolivian Society of Cancerology reported in a statement that oncology patients in La Paz, Oruro, and Potosí are facing interruptions in their chemotherapy treatments. The situation at the Thorax Hospital led a dozen heads of service to form an emergency committee. Its director, Marco García, explained that the establishment requires 25 daily cylinders of 6 cubic meters and that the last received supply is enough for only two days. The head of Cardiology, Enrique Oropeza, warned that care in the outpatient clinic was reduced by 80% and that patients with serious illnesses requiring weekly check-ups stopped showing up.

“We are sure that we are going to lose many lives due to this type of social conflict”, Oropeza warned. In the Clinics medical complex, authorities and doctors demanded this Thursday a “humanitarian corridor” to normalize supplies.

Residents of La Paz line up to buy chicken amid shortages caused by road blockades that have isolated the Bolivian capital, May 19, 2026. The shortages are not limited to oxygen. The Hospital del Tórax has been without beef for days and only has chicken for two days. The Hospital de la Mujer, for its part, reduced the rations to its patients due to the impossibility of receiving meat and eggs from the producing areas. In the Villa Fátima market, north of La Paz, the meat stalls were mostly closed and vegetables were scarce. Rosario Yujra, a 73-year-old housewife, paid 23 bolivianos — about three dollars — for a quarter of a kilo of meat with bone, a price that before the blockades was around one dollar. The Red Cross, an international humanitarian organization, facilitated the passage of two trucks with oxygen cylinders from El Alto and announced that it will manage the entry of a tanker truck stranded in Guaqui, on the border with Peru, with the capacity to supply medical centers for approximately ten days. The government, for its part, organized flights with food supplies using two Hercules aircraft sent by Argentina and deployed fuel tanker trucks to ensure the operation of ambulances. Authorities point to former President Evo Morales —in power between 2006 and 2019— as the instigator of the mobilizations. Political scientist Verónica Rocha qualified that reading: “Things have been accumulating and have exploded: the salary issue, the permanent economic crisis, the junk gasoline”, and described Morales as “just one more piece”. From Washington, Under Secretary of State Christopher Landau expressed on the social network X his support for the “legitimate constitutional government” of Paz and rejected the blockades as an attempt by those who “lost overwhelmingly at the polls” to overthrow the president.