Coronavirus: faced with the pandemic and its social consequences, the Lebanese system D
Faced with the health crisis to which the State is struggling to provide a decisive response, the Lebanese are turning to mutual aid.
Initiatives are emerging, such as “social stores” whose aim is to help the most disadvantaged, who get their supplies there at prices below those charged on the market.
AFP - JOSEPH EID
Text by: Paul Khalifeh Follow
4 min
With nearly 25% of positive tests for the coronavirus and 265,000 cases for a population of six million people, Lebanon is one of the countries most affected in the world by the pandemic.
Faced with the alarming increase in the spread of the virus, the authorities decided on Thursday to renew the total closure of the country until February 8.
The medical community has also urged security forces to be stricter in enforcing the curfew.
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from our correspondent in Beirut
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In the Lebanese capital, nearly 98% of intensive care beds are occupied, patients are sometimes treated in their cars or sent home.
Faced with this
health crisis
to which the State is struggling to provide a decisive response, the Lebanese are turning to mutual aid.
As after every tragedy that strikes them, the Lebanese set up a sort of D system, which helps them to compensate for the inadequacies of the State, weakened by successive crises.
Are hospital beds full and emergency departments overwhelmed?
So the Lebanese seek treatment at home.
A structure similar to SOS Médecins responds to patient calls.
This service is not free, but for a small fee, volunteer doctors visit their homes at any time of the day or night, even in remote areas.
They provide care and follow up.
Often, several members of the same family are infected.
Another initiative launched by two Lebanese doctor brothers living in New York and Los Angeles is also making a lot of talk:
Heal Beirut
is a network of 140 volunteer practitioners in the United States, many of them of Lebanese origin.
It offers free medical teleconsultations to Lebanese with the aim of relieving the burden of exhausted healthcare workers.
Lending of medical equipment through social networks
The surge in contamination and the saturation of the health system have been accompanied by a shortage of oxygen machines.
In this case too, the Lebanese organized themselves to try to find solutions.
From the start of the shortage, lists of suppliers of this type of medical equipment circulated on social networks.
Associations like the Orthodox Youth Movement, NGOs, like Baytna Baytak.
municipalities, sometimes even individuals, have started to lend free of charge, for two weeks, sometimes more, oxygen concentrators and other equipment used to treat coronavirus patients.
Social networks are invaded by calls or offers of oxygen machine, so that many patients have been saved thanks to this outpouring of solidarity.
But that doesn't stop profiteers from getting good deals: Oxygen machines are traded for gold on e-commerce platforms, with prices reaching as high as $ 3,000.
Solidarity with the most disadvantaged
One of the consequences of the health crisis is the worsening of social conditions, especially as Lebanon is hit by the worst economic crisis in its history.
In this area, too, solidarity plays an important role in alleviating the suffering of the Lebanese.
Since
the tragic explosion of the port of Beirut
on August 4, a whole network of mutual aid articulated around associations and NGOs has played a leading role in supporting a significant part of the population.
But beyond this now classic system, other initiatives are emerging, such as this “social store” in the city of Tripoli in northern Lebanon.
Its aim is not to make a profit, but to help the most disadvantaged, who get their supplies there at prices below those charged on the market.
The difference is made up by other more affluent customers, who agree to buy at prices more expensive than those on the market.
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To read: Covid-19 in Lebanon: the World Bank will distribute vaccines by early February
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