Two nurses transport a patient to the operating room at Mount Lebanon Hospital, Lebanon. (Illustration photo/Mario Doueiry/L'Orient Today)
BEIRUT — Relatives of a woman, who passed away on Saturday, assaulted nurses and smashed medical material at the Dar al-Shifa hospital in Tripoli, northern Lebanon, following her death, security and medical sources told L'Orient Today.
According to the sources, the woman, identified by the initials H.Y., was 57 years old and was brought to Dar al-Shifa Hospital in the Abi Samra area in Tripoli on Saturday after she suffered a severe heart attack. She died soon after she arrived at the hospital, they added.
As a result, family members of the deceased smashed material at the emergency department of the hospital and beat nurses, resulting in three injuries, the sources explained.
According to eyewitnesses, the assault was caused by the "hospital administration's demand for a bill [payment] from the deceased's family."
When contacted by L'Orient Today, a source from the hospital said that a group of people became extremely angry after the medical team failed to save the patient and started to beat the nurses. Commenting on the eyewitnesses' accusation that the hospital bill caused the assault, the hospital source said that the family paid the bill of $75 and that it wasn't the cause of the problem.
The hospital source added that a lawsuit is being filed against the people who attacked the hospital and its staff.
Later on Saturday, the Syndicate of Hospital Owners in Lebanon condemned the assault and wished a "speedy recovery" for the nurses, according to the state-run National News Agency.
The syndicate added that the recurrence of such incidents "in more than one hospital and region" is linked to the' "failure" of concerned officials to take the "necessary legal measures to deter the perpetrators."
Finally, the syndicate called on the competent authorities to "intervene and ensure the protection of workers inside hospitals and impose strict penalties on aggressors" to allow hospitals to keep providing their services and preserve the safety of patients.
Additional reporting by Michel Hallak