No sector in Lebanon is experiencing its best days. Rather, all sectors are suffering as a result of the difficult financial crisis that this small and huge country is going through with its crises.
However, the health and hospital sector is the bottom line, this sector that has suffered due to the Corona pandemic, which has exhausted it with a stifling financial crisis that threatens the closure of many hospitals, according to the words of the captain of the hospital owners, Dr. Suleiman Haroun, who revealed in an interview with “Lebanon Debate” that many cancer drugs It is still missing from the market, which directly threatens the lives of cancer patients.
Haroun was very optimistic about what the Minister of Health was able to accomplish in terms of obtaining 1,600 billion Lebanese pounds from the government, which will help the Ministry pay the arrears due to the hospitals owed by the Ministry and allow for an improvement in the tariff, which narrows the differences incurred by the citizen when entering the hospital at the expense of the Ministry of Health.
And he announced a promise from Social Security “to increase the tariff, especially after the improvement of salaries, and there is communication with the military medical and internal security forces to raise the tariff, and it is not hidden that things need to take into account the financial conditions that the state is going through and negatively affect the sector.”
Regarding medical supplies, he asserts that “subsidies have been lifted from most of them, with the exception of dialysis and some tools necessary for heart operations, but the rest of the supplies are no longer subsidized and they are too expensive for the average citizen to bear, which will negatively affect their health.”
He asserts that “there is no problem with insurance companies that obtain their policies for “furnishing dollars”, and therefore hospitals collect their money with a dollar of mattresses, but the problem is with the citizen, as a large number of Lebanese are no longer able to pay these policies with dollars.”
Regarding cancer drugs, he regrets, “because a large number of drugs are still cut off, while others are available, but this is a direct threat to the lives of cancer patients.”
What about the aid of international organizations and associations? He points out that “most of the aid is fuel that goes to government hospitals only.”
Are there really hospitals threatened with closure? Haroun confirms that “there are hospitals that are really threatened with closure in all Lebanese regions, and not exclusively in certain regions.”
And what about merging operations? He talks about an exceptional case that took place with the Hotel Dieu Hospital and Saint Charles Hospital. He says: “It is a very large hospital and has huge resources and capabilities that were able to accommodate a faltering hospital, but the rest of the hospitals cannot follow the merger policy.”