Permanent subsidy requested for electro-dependent patients due to electricity price increases – La Discusión 2024-07-16 15:39:56

In the context of the increase in electricity bills that will occur starting this month in practically the entire country, the deputy for the Ñuble Region and member of the Health and Science committees of the Lower House, Marta Bravo (UDI), presented this week – together with a cross-party group of parliamentarians – a bill that seeks to grant a permanent subsidy to all patients who are electro-dependent, as well as to people who are in a home hospitalization modality, given the magnitude of the increases that electricity rates will register.

In this regard, it is worth remembering that the parliamentarian warned more than two weeks ago that electricity bills, in the case of Ñuble, would increase – on average – by 32%, depending on the level of consumption of each household, which means that for some customers they would even increase by more than $30 thousand pesos per month.

For this reason, Congresswoman Bravo decided to promote this initiative as a way to protect people who are dependent on electricity or who are hospitalized at home, considering that these are precisely the households that tend to consume the most electricity.

“We are talking regarding one of the most shocking increases in electricity bills on record, where some households will even suffer an increase of more than $30 or $40 thousand pesos per month. And despite this, the Government just announced this Monday an improvement in the electricity subsidy, which in any case is not enough given the magnitude of this crisis. That is why, in parallel with the improvements that can be processed in Congress, together with a cross-party group of parliamentarians we decided to present this project, so that at least electro-dependent patients or people who are under the modality of home hospitalization are not affected by these increases, because they are the ones who consume more electricity due to this situation,” said the deputy.

In this regard, Bravo explained that the project aims to have the electricity companies themselves discount the amount normally consumed by the medical devices used by patients.

In this way – the parliamentarian explained – the increase in electricity bills would be prevented from having a major impact on these families, following different groups and organizations warned that they had already begun to receive the new rates, going – for example – from paying $85 to almost $140 thousand pesos.

“It is essential that the Government presents a much more robust proposal. Of course we appreciate that they decided to triple the subsidy for the most vulnerable households, but we must also think regarding electro-dependent patients and people who are hospitalized at home, as well as middle-class families and SMEs,” reiterated Deputy Bravo.