It’s bad medicine all around for a crippled Lebanon
SHE is a nurse at a Beirut hospital, but still Rita Harb can’t find her grandfather’s heart drugs. She has searched pharmacies up and down Lebanon, called friends abroad.
Not even her connections with doctors could secure the drugs. Unlike many amid the country’s financial crash, she can afford them – they just aren’t there.
Her 85-year-old grandfather is substituting his medicine with more pills of a smaller concentration to reach his dosage. That too could run out soon.
“But if he dies, he dies,” Harb said with a bitter laugh of resignation that has become a common reaction among Lebanese to their country’s multiple crises. Drugs for everything from diabetes and blood pressure to anti-depressants and fever pills used in Covid-19 treatment have disappeared from shelves around Lebanon.
Officials and pharmacists say the shortage was exacerbated by panic buying and hoarding after the Central Bank governor said that with foreign reserves running low, the government won’t be able to keep up subsidies, including for drugs.
The announcement “caused a storm, an earthquake”, said Ghassan al-Amin, head of the pharmacist syndicate.
Lebanese now scour the country and beyond for crucial medications.
It’s the newest stage in the economic collapse of the country of 5 million, once a regional hub for banking, real estate and medical services.
More than half the population has been pushed into poverty and people’s savings have lost value. Public debt is crippling, and the local currency has plunged, losing nearly 80% of its value. The health sector is buckling under the financial strain and coronavirus pandemic.
Lebanese are back to hoarding basics, such as water and fuel, like they did during the country’s 15-year civil war. Trust in the ruling class – mostly in power since the war ended in 1990 – has vanished as the country grapples with a financial breakdown, the pandemic, and the fallout from the deadly August 4 explosion at Beirut’s port that wrecked the facility and large swaths of the city.
Lebanon imports nearly everything, including 85% of its pharmaceuticals.
Lifting subsidies is an inevitable step for the highly indebted government. This is expected to send prices and inflation soaring and the Lebanese pound further tumbling.
Fixed at 1 500 (R15.44) to the dollar for decades, it now hovers around 7 000 for $1 (about R15.50) on the black market. People are hoarding medications, fearing they will no longer be able to afford them.
In the chaos, six out of every 10 brand drugs have become unavailable, said Malak Khiami, the pharmacist at Amel Association, a humanitarian group that offers primary health c are.
Out of 3 400 unionised pharmacies, nearly 300 have shut down, al-Amin said. The problem became so bad that one enraged buyer, an off-duty soldier, pulled out his gun and threatened a pharmacist who told him he didn’t have a basic pain reliever.