At the first signs of light that morning of January 14, 2021, sisters Maysa, 28, and Mayara de Oliveira, 34, got to their feet to go shopping for essential items for their mother, Marlene Almeida de Oliveira, 51.
Marlene was admitted to a public health unit in Manaus, with Covid, at the peak of the pandemic at the beginning of the year. Even so, Maysa and Mayara felt light, relieved, for having been informed the night before about their mother’s good state of health.
“You can bring fruit, soup”, they say they heard in a call on the night of the 13th. They did the shopping the next morning and added items such as sheets, diapers and nightwear to the list.
When they got home at 11:00, the phone rang again. A nurse asked them to attend the health unit, which is part of the public network of the Government of Amazonas, and take Marlene’s documents.
At the hospital, they received information about their mother’s death. Marlene died due to lack of oxygen in the unit; the supply ran out at 9:20 am; death occurred at 10:20 am.
That date was the most traumatic day and the most representative of what the Covid pandemic was like in Brazil in its most lethal years. An oxygen shortage crisis in Manaus –which later spread to cities in the interior of the state and other Amazonian regions– resulted in the death of dozens of patients from asphyxiation.
Almost two years later, and with the end of the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), there was no punishment for the managers responsible for the crisis, nor payment of compensation for moral damages to relatives of the victims of asphyxiation. The former president’s management managed to reach the end without repairing the orphans of Covid patients prevented from breathing due to lack of medical oxygen.
THE Sheet had access to nine compensation processes pending at the 1st Federal Civil Court in Manaus, whose actions were filed by people who presented evidence of the deaths of family members due to suffocation in the oxygen crisis in Amazonas.
One lawsuit has already resulted in a sentence: that of compensation to Maysa, Mayara and Anne Karoline Almeida, 23, Marlene’s youngest daughter.
“The purpose of the action was not to raise money, but to not let it pass, not to fall into oblivion”, says Mayara, who lives for rent in a single-room shed in Colônia Terra Nova, on the outskirts of Manaus. “My mother was a teacher, adored by students, paid taxes, and the only time she needed an input, she didn’t have it.”
Federal Justice determined that the Union, the state of Amazonas and the municipality of Manaus pay compensation of R$ 200,000 to each of the daughters, in the total amount of R$ 600,000. The judgment of the 1st Federal Civil Court is dated June 8, 2022. There have already been appeals, and an embargo has already been rejected, on November 14.
Compensation has not yet been paid. A reparation for Marlene’s daughters will take time, taking into account the strategy of the defendants to challenge the sentence – a strategy common to all cases consulted by the report, in the instruction phase of the actions.
The contestations have similar arguments and seem to be done on automatic. “Coldness prevails, there is nothing humanized. The contestations seek loopholes in the law so that the culprits are exempt from responsibilities”, says the lawyer Karina Câmara, author of the action brought by Marlene’s daughters.
In two processes, the report located challenges from the Ministry of Health –more specifically from SAES (Secretariat for Specialized Health Care)– that treat the shortage of medical oxygen and subsequent asphyxiation of patients as “an error by health professionals”. This allegation does not appear in the initials of the lawsuits filed in court.
According to the Ministry of the Bolsonaro government, it is the institutions accredited to the SUS that must answer for any mistakes made by professionals. In addition, the folder argues that the Union does not carry out consultations and examinations directly, this being an attribution of states and municipalities. The ministry cannot provide data to prove damage and causality, the opinions cite.
Sought before the change of management to the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), the folder did not respond to the report’s questions.
The AGU (Attorney General of the Union), which has the attribution of acting in cases of this type, lists several arguments for not paying compensation to victims of asphyxia: lack of proof of causality, “fortuitous and unpredictable epidemiological situation”, adoption of sufficient measures by the federal government and primary responsibility of the government of Amazonas, not the Union.
In the case of the lawsuit filed by Marlene’s daughters, the AGU claims that the government was under no obligation to provide and distribute medical oxygen. And he says that the amount requested –R$600,000, the same determined in the sentence– is “exorbitant” and can be “wealth-inducing”. The Union asks that the sentence be overturned. If this does not happen, the amount of compensation will fall to R$ 120 thousand.
“The AGU does not comment on the judicial defense strategy,” he said in a note. “Regarding payments, the AGU represents the institutions in the Judiciary, not being responsible for making payments.”
The state of Amazonas, governed by Bolsonarist Wilson Lima (União Brasil), who was re-elected, even blames the population of Manaus for the shortage of oxygen, as a strategy for not paying compensation. According to the PGE (State Attorney General’s Office), in an argument that is repeated in the actions, the population rejected social distancing measures, including with violence, and this led to the health chaos of January 2021.
The Prosecutor’s Office also says that patients were already elderly, or were slow to seek help, or had serious conditions of other diseases. PGE did not respond to questions in the report.
The municipality of Manaus also exempts itself from responsibility for the oxygen crisis and also did not respond to the report. The crisis occurred at the beginning of the administration of Mayor David Almeida (Avante).
Claims for compensation range from R$150,000 to R$1.7 million. The victims ranged from 43 to 81 years old.
The evidence gathered in the proceedings is the most diverse. They range from notes expressed in medical records about the lack of oxygen to eyewitness accounts.
Marlene’s daughters, for example, recorded the doctor’s speech on video about the end of the oxygen supply. The recording took place, at that moment, with the purpose of passing on the news to the other family members. It served as essential evidence for the decision of the Federal Court.
“The lack of oxygen prematurely cut off any chance she had of beating Covid”, says the sentence. “I consider the fact that Marlene’s death was due to a lack of oxygen in the public health unit where she was hospitalized to be incontrovertible.”
Another action reproduces the note on a hospitalization record: “The ‘bullet’ has run out and the unit is without O supporttwo.” The record was made at 7:20 am on January 15, 2021. The patient died at 8:45 am on the same day.
Until today, investigations by the PF (Federal Police), MPF (Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office) and the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Amazonas have not indicated an exact number of victims of asphyxiation.
In the unit where her mother was hospitalized on that January 14th, for example, Maysa says she remembers well hearing, shortly after receiving the news of Marlene’s death, that 12 had lost their lives.
The PF investigation into the performance and responsibility of reserve general Eduardo Pazuello (PL), who was the Minister of Health and who was warned several times about the risk of a lack of oxygen, has not resulted in advances that have become public so far .
The inquiry opened by the STF (Federal Supreme Court) was transferred to the Federal Court in the DF after the resignation of the general, elected federal deputy for Rio de Janeiro in October.
The MPF filed a lawsuit of administrative impropriety against Pazuello, secretaries of the ministry during his term and members of the government of Amazonas. The military was excluded from the action just over a year later. The investigations of the CPI of Covid, in the Senate, had no developments.
Maysa and Mayara say they resent not having even had the chance to run after oxygen cylinders in Manaus – one of the scenes that summarize the pandemic in Brazil.
“My mother was always my safe haven. When she left, I lost my ground. I had to resignify myself”, says Mayara. “What I hope is that this never happens again in Brazil.”
I have over 8 years of experience in the news industry. I have worked for various news websites and have also written for a few news agencies. I mostly cover healthcare news, but I am also interested in other topics such as politics, business, and entertainment. In my free time, I enjoy writing fiction and spending time with my family and friends.
