Lebanon’s health system on life support as economic woes worsen

Short Url
Updated 17 August 2021
Follow

Lebanon’s health system on life support as economic woes worsen

  • Explosion’s adverse impact continues to be felt by nation’s medical professionals and patients alike
  • Health system creaks under the weight of medical supply shortages, COVID-19 and brain drain

DUBAI: Last August, millions around the world watched in horror as footage of the devastating Beirut port blast looped on TV channels and social-media feeds for days. For residents of the Lebanese capital, that month was like no other in recent memory.

Within hours of the explosion on Aug. 4, people began to pour into the city’s hospitals with all kinds of trauma, disfiguring burns and wounds caused by flying glass and masonry. But then, Beirut’s public-health infrastructure itself was one of the biggest casualties.

According to a World Health Organization assessment, four hospitals were heavily affected and 20 primary care facilities, serving approximately 160,000 patients, were either damaged or destroyed.

A year on, as Lebanon reels from the combined impact of economic chaos, medicine shortages, power cuts and repeated COVID-19 waves, the nation’s health system is on life support.

Furthermore, medical professionals report that they are not receiving sufficient protection while on duty as their workplaces lack the medical gear and the protocols necessary for dealing with the highly transmissible delta variant of COVID-19.

“The health situation in Lebanon is really dire,” Rabih Torbay, president and CEO of US-based humanitarian aid agency Project HOPE, told Arab News.




Lebanon reels from the combined impact of economic chaos, medicine shortages, power cuts and repeated COVID-19 waves. (AFP)

“It is a combination of the lack of electricity in hospitals, a lack of fuel for generators in hospitals and beyond, a lack of medicine for hospitals and clinics, the currency losing 90 percent of its value, doctors and nurses leaving and a rise in the number of COVID-19 infections.”

Lebanon took another jolt last week when the Central Bank announced that fuel subsidies had been halted. Already, according to CNN, many factories, including one that supplies the majority of Lebanon's intravenous lines to hospitals, have closed because of long power outages.

Nivine Bou Chakra, whose grandmother takes Nebilet for hypertension, said they have had to ration the stock of drugs they were able to buy last year. “You can’t find it now. And if you do, it’s expensive,” she told Arab News.

Bou Chakra’s father has run his own dental practice for more than 20 years. Many of his patients only visit if they have an emergency, “such as inflammation from an infected tooth,” she said.

“Since they can’t find antibiotics, they come to the dentist to take the tooth out. They do that because they can’t afford the alternative: Proper treatment.”

According to Ingrid Antonios, who is doing her residency at the anesthesiology and critical care department of the Hotel-Dieu de France hospital in Beirut, doctors and nurses are having to resort to cheaper, locally produced alternatives to imported drugs.

“A lot of products were, and still are, not available in the country for various reasons. From very basic stuff, such as painkillers and proton-pump inhibitors, to more specific medications for cancer, hypertension, diabetes and antibiotics,” she said.

Tony Noujaim, a master’s student, said it has become increasingly difficult to find diabetes and cholesterol medications for his father and aunt.

“We haven’t had the need to get them from across the border, at least not yet. But getting them involves a pharmacy treasure hunt in the north. Basically, we go from pharmacy to pharmacy until we eventually find what is a pretty basic and standard medicine,” Noujaim told Arab News.

And it is not just the people of Beirut who are struggling. About 19.5 percent of Lebanon’s population of 7 million are refugees from neighboring countries. Already living precariously in impoverished communities, few of them have the means or the connections to obtain vital medications at a time of scarcity.

It is hard to believe now that Lebanon’s health sector was in much better shape not so long ago, attracting patients from across the Middle East. But conditions began to deteriorate with the onset of the financial crisis in late 2019.

At the time, the New York-based Human Rights Watch warned that health professionals were struggling to meet the needs of their patients owing to the “government’s failure to reimburse private and public hospitals, including funds owed by the National Social Security Fund and military health funds, making it difficult to pay staff and purchase medical supplies.”

The steady depletion of foreign-currency reserves has made it difficult for Lebanese traders to import essential goods and “led banks to curtail credit lines” — a disaster for a nation that depends so heavily on imports.

“Lebanon imports 80 percent of its products — most of the country’s oil, medicine, meat, grain and other supplies come from abroad,” according to a report by Christian aid agency ACT Alliance.

“The pharmaceutical crisis has deepened in Lebanon as the central bank is unable to meet the cost of subsidized medicines.”




According to a World Health Organization assessment, four hospitals were heavily affected and 20 primary care facilities, serving approximately 160,000 patients, were either damaged or destroyed during the port explosion. (AFP)

The drastic devaluation of the currency has also made health insurance unaffordable for many Lebanese. “A challenge I faced at work was when a lady in her forties suffering from advanced cancer came to the emergency department in a critical condition following a severe infection,” Antonios, of the Hotel-Dieu de France hospital, told Arab News.

“She required admission to an intensive care unit, but she and her husband couldn’t afford to pay for admission. She had to be transferred to another hospital in a very unstable condition, which could have been life threatening.”

Amid Lebanon’s overlapping crises, electricity shortages have forced hospitals to rely on private generators to keep the lights on and their life-sustaining equipment functioning. But generators run on fuel, which is also now in short supply.

The American University of Beirut (AUB) Medical Center gave warning last week that its patients were in imminent danger owing to the fuel shortage.

“This means ventilators and other lifesaving medical devices will cease to operate. Forty adult patients and 15 children living on respirators will die immediately,” the AUB said in a statement.

Water has also become a finite commodity because of prolonged mismanagement, infrastructure decay and the unmet energy needs of pumping stations and treatment plants.




“The pharmaceutical crisis has deepened in Lebanon as the central bank is unable to meet the cost of subsidized medicines,” according to a report by Christian aid agency ACT Alliance. (AFP)

“A lot of the pumps are no longer in a position to supply water to homes, yet people can’t afford to buy bottled water,” said Torbay.

“It’s not just the lack of water. With lack of water comes infection outbreaks, diarrheal diseases and hygiene-related issues.”

Watching the health system beset by a lengthening list of problems, many medical professionals have made the difficult decision to leave the country. The trend started with the onset of the economic crisis and has only accelerated since the Beirut blast.

Amani Mereby, a Ph.D. candidate, said her physician now spends more time working in France, despite being in high demand in Lebanon.

“Because of the economic crisis, my physician, who was very successful in Lebanon, is having to divide his time between here and France,” she said. “The only reason he visits Lebanon once every two months is because he wants to help his patients.”




“A lot of products were, and still are, not available in the country for various reasons,” said Ingrid Antonios, who is doing her residency at the Hotel-Dieu de France hospital in Beirut. (AFP)

Among those who have been heading for the exits are colleagues of Antonios at the Hotel-Dieu de France hospital. “A large number of medical staff are leaving the country, from medical doctors to nurses, but also students,” he said. “It’s not just young people at the beginning of their careers. A lot of people in their thirties, forties and fifties are finding a way out where possible.”

For many, the reasons for departure are a mix of financial and emotional. “They can’t survive on the salaries they get paid,” said Torbay. “It’s also extremely difficult for a doctor or a nurse to take on a patient and not be able to heal them or give them the medicine they need.”

To many among the millions currently scraping by on their meager incomes, the remedy for Lebanon’s health system maladies lies either at the ballot box or the streets. They hold the same political elites blamed for the country’s deepening governance crisis, responsible for the unfolding health disaster.

“My friends call me delusional, but I have some hope,” Noujaim told Arab News. “After the Oct. 17, 2019, revolution, there was a huge political awakening in the country. My hope is confined to the next election.”


UN conference on Israel-Palestinian conflict postponed, Macron says

Updated 13 sec ago
Follow

UN conference on Israel-Palestinian conflict postponed, Macron says

PARIS: President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that a United Nations conference co-hosted between France and Saudi Arabia to work toward a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians has been postponed after Israel launched a military attack on Iran.

Macron told reporters that the conference, which had been planned for June 17-20, had been postponed for logistical reasons as members of the Palestinian Authority could not travel to New York and that it would be re-scheduled as soon as possible.

More to follow...


Palestinian ambassador: UK should recognize statehood to help end ‘deadly status quo’

Updated 13 June 2025
Follow

Palestinian ambassador: UK should recognize statehood to help end ‘deadly status quo’

  • Husam Zomlot urges Britain to ‘right historic wrongs,’ show ‘political courage’
  • UN conference on 2-state solution could see states, including France, Canada, recognize Palestine

LONDON: The Palestinian ambassador to the UK has called on the Labour government to fulfill its manifesto pledge and recognize his nation as an independent sovereign state.

Husam Zomlot wrote in The Guardian that the move was “long overdue” ahead of a UN conference on the two-state solution next week in New York, and that it would help end the “deadly status quo” with Israel.

“I call on the British government to end this vicious path, right its historic wrongs and officially recognize the state of Palestine while the conditions are uniquely ripe to do so,” Zomlot wrote.

“Recognition is neither a reward for one party nor a punishment for another. It is a long-overdue affirmation of the Palestinian people’s unconditional right to exist and live freely in our homeland,” he added.

“Peace is not made between occupier and occupied. It can only exist between equals.”

Ahead of the UN conference on June 17, set to be co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, several states yet to recognize Palestine have begun discussions about doing so, including the UK and Canada. 

Middle East Minister Hamish Falconer came under pressure in the House of Commons on Tuesday for the government to recognize Palestine unconditionally.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy recently told Parliament the UK had held direct talks with France about Palestinian statehood, but added the UK wanted the move to amount to more than just a symbolic gesture.

But Zomlot wrote: “Recognition (should not) be subject to ever more conditions on the Palestinian side. Delaying recognition simply reinforces the deadly status quo, denying Palestinians’ equal rights until Israel consents, thus granting our occupier a permanent veto over the future.”

Ahead of the conference, the French government, which is also believed to be among those set to recognize Palestine, published a letter laying out political commitments made by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, including that a future Palestinian state would require Hamas “laying down its weapons” and “no longer ruling Gaza.”

The commitments included holding democratic presidential elections within a year, and Hamas accepting nonviolence, disarmament, and the two-state solution. Abbas also condemned the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by the militant group, and demanded the release of all remaining hostages in Gaza.

Hugh Lovatt, from the European Council on Foreign Relations, told The Guardian: “Recognition would certainly allow London and Paris to press the PA towards political renewal, including the holding of long-overdue elections, but it does not provide them with much leverage over Hamas which does not consider recognition by itself as being of sufficient value of itself to disarm before a peace agreement with Israel is reached.”

A senior diplomat from a Gulf state told The Guardian that Hamas had agreed to the proposal to end its rule in Gaza, but not to disarming.

Another Gulf diplomat told the paper: “Israel is seeking the total annihilation of Hamas and will not be willing to hand security in Gaza to the PA or a multinational force.”

The US government sent a diplomatic cable on Tuesday urging countries not to attend the conference, calling it “counterproductive to ongoing, lifesaving efforts to end the war in Gaza and free hostages.”

But Zomlot wrote: “This is a moment of historic consequence. It demands moral clarity and political courage. I urge the UK to rise to the moment and act now.”


Arab world, Middle East condemn Israel’s attacks against Iran

Updated 13 June 2025
Follow

Arab world, Middle East condemn Israel’s attacks against Iran

DUBAI: The Arab world has responded to Israel’s strikes against Iran, each country offering its condemnation of the attacks that killed at least two top military officers, raising the potential for an all-out war between the two bitter Middle East adversaries.

The UAE, through its foreign affairs ministry, stressed the importance of “exercising the utmost self-restraint and judgment to mitigate risks and prevent the expansion of the conflict.”

 

 

“Enhancing dialogue, adhering to international law, and respecting the sovereignty of states constitute essential principles for resolving the current crises,” the foreign affairs ministry added.

The UAE emphasized the need to resolve disputes through diplomatic means rather than confrontation and escalation, and called on the United Nations Security Council to take urgent and necessary measures to achieve a ceasefire, and to reinforce international peace and security.

Oman offered its “strong condemnation of the brutal military aggression launched by Israel on the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which targeted sovereign facilities and caused casualties.”

 

 

“Oman considers this action a dangerous and reckless escalation that constitutes a flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter and the principles of international law. It also represents unacceptable and ongoing aggressive behavior that undermines the foundations of stability in the region,” the country’s foreign affairs ministry said.

And Jordan’s foreign ministry spokesperson Sufian Qudah warned of the “consequences of such escalatory actions, saying they threatened regional security and stability and risk exacerbating tensions”, state news agency Petra reported.

 

 

Elsewhere Qatar said it “considers the assault a blatant violation of Iran’s sovereignty and security, as well as a clear breach of international law and its established principles,” state news agency QNA meanwhile reported.

“The State of Qatar voices its grave concern over this dangerous escalation, which forms part of a recurring pattern of aggressive policies that threaten regional peace and stability and hinder efforts aimed at de-escalation and diplomatic resolution.”

Qatar emphasized “the urgent need for the international community to assume its legal and moral responsibilities and to act swiftly to halt these Israeli violations.”

 

 

“The State of Qatar reaffirms its firm position in rejecting all forms of violence, and reiterates its call for restraint and the avoidance of escalation that could widen the scope of conflict and undermine regional security and stability,” QNA reported.

Turkiye also condemned “in the strongest terms” Israel’s air strike on Iran, calling it a provocation that violates international law and risks further escalation in the region.

The Turkish foreign ministry in a statement said the attack showed Israel “does not want issues to be resolved through diplomatic means” and urged it to halt “aggressive actions that could lead to greater conflicts.”

 

 

Jassim Mohammed Al-Budaiwi, Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), also described the Israeli attacks as a ‘clear violation of international law and the United Nations Charter.’

Al-Budaiwi, in a statement, called on the ‘international community and the Security Council to assume their responsibilities towards immediately halting this aggression and avoiding escalation that could ignite a wider conflict, which would have dire consequences for regional and international peace.’

In its condemnation of the attacks, Bahrain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned of its “grave repercussions on regional security and stability”.

And it called for “de-escalation, restraint, and a reduction in tensions”.

The Ministry reiterated Bahrain’s call for an immediate halt to military escalation to spare the region and its people from the consequences on regional stability, security, and international peace.

And it affirmed Bahrain’s stance advocating for the resolution of the crises through dialogue and diplomatic means, as well as the necessity of continuing US-Iranian negotiations regarding the Iranian nuclear file.


Trump urges Iran to ‘make a deal, before there is nothing left’

Updated 13 June 2025
Follow

Trump urges Iran to ‘make a deal, before there is nothing left’

  • Trump earlier told Fox News he was aware Israel was going to conduct strikes on Iran before it happened
  • Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier Thursday that the United States was “not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region”

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump urged Iran on Friday to “make a deal,” warning that there will be more “death and destruction” after Israel launched deadly strikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities.

His comments on his Truth Social platform came after Israel pounded Iran in a series of air raids on Friday, striking 100 targets.

The operation killed senior figures – among them the armed forces chief and top nuclear scientists – and Iran has called Israel’s wave of strikes a “declaration of war.”

On Friday morning, Trump said: “I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal.”

He added that Israel – which Trump has aligned Washington to since his return to the White House – has a lot of weapons thanks to the United States and “they know how to use it.”

“There has already been great death and destruction, but there is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal, come to an end,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

“Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left... JUST DO IT, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE,” he said.

Trump earlier told Fox News he had been made aware of the Israeli strikes before they happened, and stressed that Tehran “cannot have a nuclear bomb,” the US broadcaster said.

He also said that “we are hoping to get back to the negotiating table,” according to Fox News.

During Trump’s first term, he pulled the United States out of a landmark agreement to relieve sanctions on Iran in return for curbs on its nuclear program.

Fox News also reported that Trump’s administration reached out to at least one key Middle Eastern ally to acknowledge that the strike was going to happen, but said the United States was not involved.

“Trump noted the US is ready to defend itself and Israel if Iran retaliates,” Fox News said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier Thursday that the United States was “not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region.”

“Let me be clear: Iran should not target US interests or personnel.”

Trump will be attending a National Security Council meeting Friday morning.


UN nuclear watchdog chief ready to travel to Iran to assess situation

Updated 13 June 2025
Follow

UN nuclear watchdog chief ready to travel to Iran to assess situation

VIENNA: UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said on Friday he was ready to travel to Iran to assess the situation there after Israel carried out widespread military strikes that hit the sprawling nuclear complex at Natanz.

In a statement to a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors, Grossi said the other main enrichment center in Iran, Fordow, was not hit and neither was another nuclear facility in Esfahan, citing Iranian authorities.

There are no elevated radiation levels at Natanz, he added.

“I call on all parties to exercise maximum restraint to avoid further escalation. I reiterate that any military action that jeopardizes the safety and security of nuclear facilities risks grave consequences for the people of Iran, the region, and beyond,” Grossi said in his statement.

“I have indicated to the respective authorities my readiness to travel at the earliest to assess the situation and ensure safety, security and non-proliferation in Iran.”

He did not say what the extent of the damage at Natanz was or what parts of the site were hit. The site includes a vast underground uranium enrichment plant and a smaller, above-ground pilot enrichment plant.

Iran is enriching to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent of weapons grade, at the pilot plant, but it is producing smaller quantities of that material there than at Fordow, a site dug into a mountain that military experts have said would be difficult for Israel to destroy through bombardment.

“Despite the current military actions and heightened tensions, it is clear that the only sustainable path forward – for Iran, for Israel, the entire region, and the international community – is one grounded in dialogue and diplomacy to ensure peace, stability, and cooperation,” Grossi said.