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MENA Observatory – Lebanon
The suffering of doctors and nurses working in the Lebanese health sector worsened after several medical centers and hospitals were left without work as a result of the partial or total destruction of the port of Beirut on 4 August.
After the explosion, hundreds of workers in the health sector lost their jobs after suffering a reduction in wages, due to the financial crisis that the country is going through, and the lack of payment of their fees, in addition to keeping their money in banks, as well as in other depositors, with a shortage of dollars in the Lebanese market.
In addition, what made matters worse is that medical personnel have to work continuous hours, exposing themselves and their families to danger, with the outbreak of the Corona epidemic, and the record of some 500 cases daily for weeks, in instead of receiving incentives and rewards, as is the case in every country in the world. To urge them to stay on the front line to confront the virus and its spread, the austerity measures taken by private institutions to resist the growing economic and financial crisis included the medical sector, prompting hundreds of its workers to request immigration and respond to previous job applications that came through the Foreign Office from countries such as England and Canada. .
The head of the Union of Doctors, Professor “Sharaf Abu Sharaf”, revealed to the newspaper “Asharq Al-Awsat” that hundreds of doctors had come from the Union to request their files and testimonies in preparation to leave the country, warning of a real disaster if the bleeding continued in the medical sector.
Professor “Abu Sharaf” referred to the desire of European and American countries, as well as neighboring Arab countries, to hire Lebanese doctors and nurses, and all workers in the hospital sector, due to their scientific level and great experience, in addition to the rush to work.
Abu Sharaf stressed the need to “engage with the union to address this phenomenon and improve working conditions, but the situation is very difficult, with the absence of minimum rights and protection, and the payment of fees after years, in addition to the absence Security After Retirement “.
The head of the Adhar Physicians Union: “We recently proposed a law to ensure the immunity of the doctor and protect him during the exercise of his profession, and we are also working on other aspects, but the many and successive developments, the most recent of which was the port explosion, and the great damage it caused to the hospitals in the capital, which aggravated the problem.
In turn, the head of the dialysis department of the “Al-Mashreq” hospital, Elias Nicola, plans to emigrate to join hundreds of other colleagues.
Nicola confirmed to Asharq Al-Awsat that there are some 5,000 doctors who have left Lebanon, of which between 500 and 600 during the last months, indicating that the main reasons leading to the emigration of workers in this field are the long delay in the collection of their fees and the retention of money in banks. And the search for a secure future for their families.
And affiliated with the Medical Union in Beirut 12,500 registered doctors practicing the profession, in addition to 2,500 doctors in the northern regions.
The number of registered nurses in the Union reaches 16,000 and they face the same challenges as doctors.
The head of nurses, Dr. Mirna Abi Abdullah Doumit, confirmed that the emigration of workers from the health sector has reached unprecedented levels as a result of low wages, non-payment of wages, unpaid leave, in addition to unsafe working conditions and healthy.
It is noteworthy that the Lebanese Union of Nurses issued a statement the day before Friday, raising the alarm, in which it alerted about the multiplication of the emigration of the nursing workforce with scientific competence and specialization in search of working conditions outside of Lebanon, and this is what the union considered a matter of concern for the future of healthcare in Lebanon and the future of the profession.
