Lebanon: "We are out of stock of antibiotics and equipment"

Audio 01:26

In the crowded emergency room of Rafic Hariri hospital, patients pile up on stretchers.

Here, a nurse in the hospital's Covid unit, November 13, 2020 (illustrative image).

AFP - JOSEPH EID

Text by: RFI Follow

4 min

In Lebanon, hospitals are sounding the alarm bells in the face of drug, equipment and electricity shortages.

Plunged into the most violent economic crisis in its history, the country lacks everything, and the health sector is one of the first victims.

Reportage.

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With our correspondent in Beirut

Noé Pignède

In the crowded emergency room at Rafiq Hariri Hospital, patients pile up on stretchers.

The heat is stifling.

With the power cuts, even the air conditioning is rationed.

Many patients suffer from chronic illnesses, but their treatments are nowhere to be found.

Distraught, Hussein seeks

medication

for his brother who suffers from heart failure.

“ 

His treatment is out of stock.

He hasn't taken anything for three days.

He was in great pain, so I brought him here, he

reports

.

The doctor told us we had to find his pills somehow.

But we don't know how. 

"

So, Hussein asks all his friends to scour the pharmacies in the city, but for the moment, no one can find any.

 We have found a friend who is coming back from abroad and can bring us some, but he won't be there until next week,” he

explains.

Otherwise, there are some on the black market.

But the problem is, you can never be sure of the quality. 

"

Especially since for this worker, the price of 30 days of treatment on the parallel market is prohibitive: 700,000 Lebanese pounds, or two-thirds of his monthly salary.

► See also: Crisis in Lebanon: renewable strike by pharmacists against drug shortages

For Mahmoud Hassoun, head of department, the health disaster is imminent.

“ 

We are out of stock of antibiotics and equipment, such as catheters.

I can spend 6 hours looking for just one, he

says.

And the electricity shortage worries us a lot: how will we be able to treat Covid patients who need a ventilator?

The patients are going to die. 

"

This doctor from the public hospital asks for the assistance of the international community to fill the gaps of a State unable to ensure the health of its population.

► Read also: Iraq pledges to give fuel to Lebanon to cope with electricity shortages

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  • Lebanon

  • Health and medicine

  • Economic crisis