# medical oxygen



## lumincat

I am hoping to travel to Portugal with my Mum and Dad, my elderly mother has Lung Fibrosis and requires liquid oxygen. We are wanting to rent a place for the colder months as we currently live in Austria and the winters are very hard for her.
The area we wish to live in is Pedrogao grande. We are looking to rent a two or three bedroom house in this area from Mid Jan to April. If anyone has any information on any houses available to rent could you please let me know.
Is there anyone out there who has to use liquid oxygen at home and knows how to oganise its delivery. I am thinking I may have to organise it all from Austria before my arrival. I have no idea how to go about this at the moment, just hoping maybe someone might know.
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.


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## canoeman

Not sure about Austria but from UK if reguired

_Oxygen therapy
Contact the relevant branch of the Administracão Regional de Saúde to make the necessary arrangements before leaving the UK. 
_
so you'll need to know where your renting and then contact the Regional Centre to make arrangements and valid EHIC cards.

Health centre Pedrugao Grande Centro de Saúde


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## lumincat

Thank you so much, I wonder if they will mind me contacting them in English?


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## canoeman

If you can find the person that speaks English, depending on your Austrian status then it would probably require checking first with Austrian health authorities as they might have different procedures, you can get it privately but that creates a different set of problems.


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## lumincat

Thanks again canoeman. I will get in touch with the medical centre in Pedrogao Grande and have a long chat with our liquid air provider here in Austria, we will be on a 3 month holiday first, and when our house is complete move over permanently. 

I see that gas oxygen is much cheaper, it maybe that we have to change the liquid air to gas oxygen. I will speak to my mums specialist about this too.

The links you have given me are great, thank you for your time and energy, we are really grateful.
Kind Regards
Lumincat


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## Guest

Have you had a look at portable oxygen concentrators? Might be worth a look, and cheaper in the long run than compressed bottles of oxygen. Is your mum on it continuously? And at what % ?


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## lumincat

I have bought her a portable air concentrator which can be used in the car and or plugged into a wall socket at home. The only problem with it is that after 1 hour it shuts off and has to be turned on again, my mum needs oxygen 24hours per day at 2 ltr per minute. I wish we could use the concentrator alone but I worry that while we are in Portugal something goes wrong with it and she is without her air.


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## Guest

You could always buy a back up cylinder. Google world oxygen deliveries, there are loads of companies who deliver. Not sure on price though. Until you get comfortable with the health system. When did you get you concentrator? They have evolved loads over the last 1-2 years.


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## Guest

Not in Portugal but we used a mains powered oxygen generator/concentrator (for my mum) and ran it for months 24 hours a day without problems but it was not one of the car/portable ones, it took about 350 watt and was the same type as used in the local hospital and we got a contribution to the electricity bill because of "medical use". We also had an O2 cylinder as standby and a couple of smaller cylinders for the back of a wheel chair or car. From work there were available O2 cylinders which were certified for airline travel. We didn't use Liquid Oxygen because of the size of the installation of the holding tank and the complexity compared to an O2 cylinder.


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## lumincat

I bought it over the internet about a year ago. I am trying to sort out getting free Oxygen delivered to us while in Portugal, trying to find out if the Austrian medical service will be able to advise me as they currently provide her with oxygen free of charge, maybe she will have to pay and then claim back. So hard to try and arrange things while away from where you are going too. Hate the fact that something so important for my mums life has turned us into prisoners of the local health care systems. Thank you so much for your reply and help with all this.


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## canoeman

Portugal's health laws will give her the same the same health cover and costs as a Portuguese National.

For the initial visit she would get treatment as above on her Austrian EHIC card and *possibly* be able to claim any costs she would have got free in Austria back, which depends on Austria's rulings

Again generally any treatment like oxygen, dialysis should be pre-arranged with Portuguese Health Service, unless you make private arrangements through the private network but you cannot claim back any costs.

Once the visit turns from a visit to Resident (i.e. 3 months) then her treatment and costs are exactly the same as a Portuguese National, so you need to find out if Austria would refund any costs she might incur that would be free in Austria during the initial 3 months.
Once Resident would her oxygen treatment be free or charged for in your Region and also who supplies oxygen

Do you not have contacts here who could visit the Regional Heath Center or your Centro de Saude to make inquiries?


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## lumincat

Thank you for the info, We only have my estate agent and builder and I think I will call them next week and see if they would mind finding out for me. We will be over just for the 3 months, probably just less than 3 months so that we dont fall into the resident problems.
I own land there and hope to start building as soon as my house in Austria's sale is completed. This is just a tester for my parents to see how they like it and if we can get enough health care for her to survive there. I am sure that next week will with more investigation give me a better idea of how I am going to manage it. We are driving over and I think the little concentrator will do the job on the journey, we also have 3 cats and a dog that we are bring on holiday with us, so have to sort all of that out also. Pet passports etc.

Thanks again for your help and replys everyone, I can't wait to be over there in the sunshine as its -5 in the day time at the moment here and -12 at night. Not great brrrrrrr...


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## canoeman

Don't envy you that trip


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## lumincat

Thanks for that, I do know Cernache Bonjardim, unfortunately it is alittle bit to far from the land that we own and we will be doing loads of work there everyday, so the travel costs would not make it practical for us. I have arranged a house in Pedrogao Grande with our estate agent. Close to everything. Thank you anyway.

Kind Regards


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