Lebanon cannot handle new virus wave: Official
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s deepening economic crisis has piled pressure on hospitals, leaving them illequipped to face any new wave of the coronavirus, a top hospital director has warned.
Already struggling with shortages of medicine and an exodus of staff abroad, the country’s health facilities are now also having to contend with almost round-the-clock power cuts.
“All hospitals are now less prepared than they were during the wave at the start of the year,” said Firass Abiad, the manager of the largest public hospital in the country batling COVID-19.
“Medical and nursing staff have let, medicine that was once available has run out,” and ever lengthening cuts to the mains power supply have let hospitals under constant threat.
Even the Rafik Hariri University Hospital (RHUH) he runs has been struggling to cope.
“We only get two to three hours of main electricity, and for the rest of the time it’s up to the generators,” Abiad said.
On top of worrying they could burn out, “we have the huge burden of having to constantly be on the hunt for fuel oil.”
Huge demand for the increasingly scarce commodity has driven up prices by more than 80 per cent since June 17.
Even at the prestigious RHUH, some medicines are routinely running out.
“Some days it’s antibiotics, others it’s anaesthetics,” the hospital chief said.
Sometimes “we’re forced to ask the patients’ relatives to go and try to find the medicine from another hospital or a pharmacy.”
Ater dropping over the spring, COVID-19 cases are on the rise again as Lebanese expats flood home for the summer, and many gather with family and friends.
On Thursday alone, 98 people tested positive for Covid on arrival at Beirut airport, the health ministry said. “It could be catastrophic if this rise in coronavirus numbers leads to a spike like the one we saw at the start of the year,” Abiad said.
Abiad said the solution was beter social distancing and more inoculations in a country where just 15 percent of the population have been fully vaccinated.