The head of the Syndicate of Private Hospitals, Suleiman Haroun, sounded the alarm, with the week’s deadline approaching to find a solution to secure hospital liquidity, stressing that there are no positive signs and that, starting next week, the citizen must pay the price of the medicine in cash so that the hospital can secure it.
In this context, the head of the Syndicate of Private Hospitals, Suleiman Haroun, confirmed that “hospitals are unable to continue in this way, especially since our accounts are frozen in banks.”
In an interview with the “Lebanese Debate”, he said: “We asked the Banque du Liban to secure up to 200 billion per month, i.e. 100 billion to pay part of the employees’ wages, and another 100 billion to cover part of the purchases, and the bank agreed only to 90 billion.”
Is the Lebanese facing the danger of death today? He replied: “The patient’s life is a red line for us, and no one is allowed to cross this matter,” adding: “The rule is that we provide tools, health supplies, and medicines on a regular basis, and in a way that we can continue to work with, and this matter is not currently available.”
And he stressed, “Hospitals will ask patients to pay the price of medicines in cash, because the merchant wants their price in cash.”
And how can the patient be asked to pay the price of medicines, which the hospital is supposed to charge from the insurance companies in flat dollars? He replied: “When we take the price of the medicine from the patient in cash, we do not re-register these medicines again with the insurance.”
But the patient pays to the insurance so as not to incur additional expenses, so does he pay the bill twice? Haroun placed the problem with the Banque du Liban, saying: “The bank must secure liquidity for hospitals, otherwise we cannot work.”
He justifies this decision of the hospitals by the scarcity of liquidity that the Banque du Liban gives them, and asks: “By what right does the liquidity be cut off from the hospitals?”