Navigating Lebanon’s health-care crisis

Navigating Lebanon’s health-care crisis

The health-care system in Lebanon is being subjected to intense stress. The system is suffering from the compounded and intertwined effects of two major economic challenges: 1. the inability of patients to purchase medical services because of their decreased overall purchasing power, and 2. several downstream effects of de facto and illegal capital controls. Accordingly, serious dialogue aiming to develop a plan to surmount these challenges and alleviate negative impacts is very much needed. Here, reflecting on the experiences of countries that have gone through similar conditions may help us avoid the worst. The worst is: not having clear and transparent ethical guidance for health policy austerity-driven decisions. This will further aggravate the economic challenges by introducing absence of trust and skepticism regarding egalitarian allocation of resources.