Lebanon’s hospitals buckling under financial pressure

Lebanon’s hospitals buckling under financial pressure

BEIRUT - Lebanon's hospitals, long considered among the best in the Middle East, are cracking under the country's financial crisis, struggling to pay staff, keep equipment running or even stay open amid a surge in coronavirus cases.

Private hospitals, the engine of the health system, warn they may have to shut down. Chronically underfunded public hospitals, which have led the fight against the virus, fear they will be overrun.

Across the country, hospitals and doctors are reporting shortages in vital medical supplies such as anaesthesia drugs and sutures. With power cuts that run through most of the day, they pour money into fuel for generators, and many are turning away non-critical cases to conserve resources.

People gather at the entrance of the Orange Nassau Governmental Hospital, in Tripoli, Lebanon. (AP)

"The situation is really catastrophic, and we expect a total collapse if the government doesn't come up with a rescue plan,“ said Selim Abi Saleh, head of the physicians union in northern Lebanon, one of the country's poorest and most populated regions.

One of the country's oldest and most prestigious university hospitals, the American University Medical Center, laid off hundreds of its staff last week, citing the "disastrous“ state of the economy and causing uproar and