Private hospitals say they are ill-equipped to cope with rising numbers of COVID-19 patients. (Credit: AFP)
BEIRUT — The Syndicate of Private Hospital Owners in Lebanon issued a statement Wednesday warning that the steep rise in COVID-19 infections amid limited hospital intake capacity would lead to a “health catastrophe” in the coming days.
Here’s what we know:
• The hospital owners’ statement indicates that the health facilities lacked “the reagents necessary for medical laboratories” and the “oxygen, medicine and medical equipment” necessary to treat COVID-19 patients. The scarce equipment is linked in the statement to “difficult circumstances imposed by importers.” The statement also decries the state’s lifting of subsidies and the effect of this on the price of medical supplies.
• The statement goes on to note that a number of hospitals in Lebanon had shut down their COVID-19 departments due to “economic difficulties and staff unavailability.” In September, the Word Health Organization reported that 40 percent of Lebanon’s doctors and 30 percent of its nursing staff had left the country either permanently or temporarily.
• Hospital owners called for the Lebanese state and international actors to provide “urgent support, including funds, resources and equipment, that would enable them to admit COVID-19 patients.” The statement claims that private hospitals’ budgets were further constricted after the Lebanese government failed to pay them their dues in the current year, in addition to the amounts it owed from the year before.
• The warning comes at a time during which new daily cases of COVID-19 infections have significantly increased alongside, as the statement highlights, hospitalizations and admissions into intensive care resulting from the virus.