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Hadeel Farfour wrote in “Al-Akhbar”:
Until last week, the Ministry of Health estimated that only 90 intensive care beds remained vacant, in a context that suggested intensifying pressure on the health sector and approaching the worst case scenario, such as resorting to “differentiation” between patients and selecting the “first” between them, which means a greater need. To extra beds.
About a month ago, on November 11, two planes from the Qatari Emiri Air Force arrived with two field hospitals in the Tire and Tripoli regions, each with a capacity of 500 beds, with the aim of “supporting the efforts of the Lebanese state in the fight against the Corona virus and to supply the shortage of hospitals ”, provided that they were under the supervision of the Ministry of Public Health in coordination with the army. Due to the delay in the establishment of the field hospital in Tripoli, dozens of people responded yesterday to a call to demonstrate in front of the Ministry of Health, “denouncing the delay in the installation of the field hospital and the political bias of the minister and his preference for installing the hospital in Tire without installing it in Tripoli. “
Health Minister Hamad Hassan, for his part, denied that the Tire field hospital had begun to function, and explained the reasons that prevented the installation of the two hospitals so far, since “The team that arrived could not lead to the establishment of a hospital, which is a normal and unfit family. For intensive care, it can be used if the situation is very serious. “He noted that” we have two options: either request specialized equipment for hospitals to adapt to our needs, or build them as they are, which makes them vulnerable to damage. ” .
He explained that the ministry requested financing for all necessary equipment from the World Bank through the World Health Organization, “but the World Bank has not yet responded.” According to Hassan, the cost of the equipment needed to equip the two hospitals to receive intensive care patients amounts to $ 5 million, in addition to “the operating cost and the cost of medical personnel.
It should be noted that the special committee in charge of studying the options for the sites necessary for the construction of the two hospitals has concluded that it is better to establish them alongside two existing hospitals, government or private, as an extension to them. Hassan, responding to the political accusation of “deliberately marginalizing the north,” referred to the provision of the Government Hospital in Tripoli with forty intensive care beds through a grant from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, “and all are not yet used. “
Beyond the political offers, these data mean, in practice, that it is not possible to have field hospitals without the necessary means to operate them, either in terms of ensuring financial costs or at the level of medical personnel who mainly suffer many challenges , which is imperative well to intensify pressure on hospitals. The private sector to increase the number of beds and fulfill the promises it made during the closure period in exchange for its demands (raising the cost of a patient and paying part of their accumulated fees), or to continue equipping government hospitals, unique recourse to the great collapse of health in the country.
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