In Lebanon, due to the financial crisis, banks are limiting cash withdrawals from their customers. In a country where the healthcare system is almost entirely private, some patients, even wealthy ones, can no longer pay for their care.
Almost three years after the explosion at the port of Beirut, and as Lebanon has been sinking into a financial crisis since 2019, many patients can no longer get treatment. In this country, the hospital system is almost entirely private and to be admitted to the emergency room, you must first go to the cash register. But the Lebanese no longer have access to their savings, and their money is blocked in the banks: they can only withdraw their savings bit by bit. Some people, however wealthy, can no longer even pay for their care.
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This is the case, for example, of Charlotte, 88, suffering from cancer. She is under respiratory assistance, in the intensive care unit of the Mont-Liban hospital in Beirut. His daughter Véronique explains: “She has several things to deal with that require chemotherapy, but it takes money, it’s a matter of life and death. The hospital has stopped medical care because every day she has to pay $1,000 “.
Bank withdrawals limited to $1,500 per month
According to the doctors, this sum could make it possible to treat his mother. Véronique should be able to pay her, she has a million dollars in her bank account. But since the bankruptcy of the banking system, Lebanese savers have been rationed. She can hardly withdraw money anymore: “I’ve been to the bank to get my money back so they give me $1,500 a month. But I need $1,000 every day just to process my mum. The banks are to kill my mother.”
Véronique tried several times to negotiate with the boss of her bank, but he didn’t want to hear anything despite the urgency: “I’m very angry, I can’t live anymore, I cry every night. I’m afraid she’ll be kicked out of the hospital. Would you accept that for your mother?”
“We never let a patient die without care”
Cases like this, Dr. No. Garrios has seen hundreds pass since the start of the economic crisis. But the assistant medical director of the hospital admits her helplessness: “We do everything we can when it’s urgent, we never let a patient die without care. But what usually happens is that for patients like that, the bill becomes very high. Sometimes they decide to die at home because it stresses them out. They’ve worked all their lives, and all their savings are gone, they can’t pay for their medicine.”
Doctor No Garrios continues: “We try to develop a charity for these patients, we do what we can”. A financial solidarity that Véronique tries to benefit from, the last hope that her mother can survive.
The report by Noé Pignède in Beirut, Lebanon
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