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Private hospitals announced a “warning strike” to protest the verdict in a high-profile medical malpractice case. The hospitals’ syndicate said on Monday that its members will stop taking patients, except emergencies, dialysis and chemotherapy, until Saturday. The temporary shutdown aims to register the hospitals’ opposition to an appeals court ruling by Judge Tarek Bitar that found medical malpractice in the case of Ella Tannous, a young girl whose limbs were amputated in 2015, which was filed by her parents against the American University of Beirut Medical Center and Jbeil's Hôpital Notre Dame des Secours. Tannous was awarded LL9 billion and a monthly pension for life equal to four times the minimum wage, and her parents were awarded an additional LL1 billion in compensation. The Lebanese Order of Physicians decried the ruling as “unfair to those who did everything in their power to save the child’s life,” adding, “Such judgments will lead to doctors later avoiding treating difficult cases, and thus it will become difficult to have doctors in emergency or intensive care for patients.”
After last year saw a surge in migrants attempting to cross from Lebanon to Cyprus by boat, smuggling attempts appear to be rising again. The Lebanese Army said yesterday it stopped a boat off the coast of Tripoli on Sunday as it attempted to smuggle 59 Syrians and one Lebanese out of the country. The Internal Security Forces said on Saturday that it had detained 51 Syrians allegedly trying to flee to Cyprus from the area of Anfeh, Koura, as well as three suspected smugglers. A UN refugee agency (UNHCR) spokesperson told L’Orient Today that in total, at least 977 people are known to have attempted to reach Cyprus by boat from January 2020 to May 2021, some of whom arrived successfully while others were intercepted upon departure or turned back by Cypriot authorities. In 2019, 270 people attempted the journey. While most are Syrian refugees, the UNHCR said a growing number of Lebanese are joining them.
Drivers throughout Lebanon are facing increasing difficulties filling their tanks as gas stations close or ration their fuel supply. On Monday, traffic was snarled at several locations in Beirut while consumers lined up at the pumps. The NNA reported that gas stations in Nabatieh closed on Monday due to an apparent fuel shortage. Long lines and closures were also reported in Saida, which saw most of its gas stations shutter over the weekend, and Kesrouan, causing worse than usual congestion on the highway north of Beirut. Some analysts have blamed the supply issues on gas stations hoarding fuel in anticipation of price increases, as well as on delays in the central bank’s payments to foreign suppliers. BDL has denied that it is delaying payments.
The Central Inspection agency reported on Monday that 172,830 people have received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, and another 142,740 have taken one dose. This puts Lebanon at just 4 percent of the number of people needed to meet its target of having 70 percent of the population fully inoculated, the report said. A total of 1.26 million people have so far registered to receive the vaccine on the government’s Impact platform. The agency noted that uptake has been slow among the country’s non-Lebanese residents, who represent just 6 percent of those currently registered. In addition to the vaccines being administered through the public campaign, the report noted that 26,855 people in the private sector have taken the privately funded Sputnik V vaccine at 10 accredited medical centers.
Dozens of protesters gathered in downtown Beirut yesterday in solidarity with Palestinians facing expulsion from their homes in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. Earlier in the day, Palestinians and supporters gathered in front of the UNRWA headquarters in Beirut and in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp to call for the right of return and voice support for Palestinians in the occupied territories. Two more solidarity gatherings are planned for today. At 5 p.m., demonstrators will gather at the Mar Elias Palestinian refugee camp and march to Shatila, and at 8 p.m. protesters will gather in Martyrs’ Square.