Reportage
Inside a Lebanese hospital that’s running out of everything
A small girl with shrapnel from Israeli bombs. A hospital running out of supplies. ‘The problem is that there is only one country that can resolve the situation here: the United States.’
In Arabic, “Sausan” is the name of a delicate flower, translated sometimes as lily, sometimes as jasmine. It is also the name of a 6-year-old girl who has spent 16 days in intensive care at the hospital in Rayak, on the edge of the Beka'a Valley towards the border with Syria.
“After an Israeli airstrike a short distance from the hospital, she got shrapnel lodged in her skull,” says Dr. Raific Haidar, a neurosurgeon at the hospital. ”We’ve operated on her three times already, because each time the MRI shows more fragments. But now her condition is stable: she has recovered her vision and most of her brain function, but is still unable to speak.”
We find her mother sitting in the room, in a hijab and black tunic down to her feet, eager for more information from the nurse. “She’s out of danger,” the woman explains to her, interpreting the neurosurgeon's words. “Don't worry, habibti.” This is what the nurse calls everyone: habibi or habibti, “my dear” in the masculine and feminine. The woman keeps thanking her, looking a little embarrassed by our presence; in the end, she tells us merci as well. Then we hear the emergency signal and go down to the emergency room: they’ve just bombed a village nearby.
“All the settlements around here have been bombed, and the situation isn’t getting any better,” explains Mohammad Abdallah, the hospital's founder and director, sitting behind his imposing desk. There are very few public hospitals in Lebanon; most are private or subsidized clinics. Some are run directly by Hezbollah.
But not this one in Rayak, as Abdallah is keen to stress: “Hezbollah can’t exert too much pressure here, because there were already very strong families. If they wanted to impose something on us, it would definitely lead to a clash. Of course, there are some who are affiliated with them, but they are those who didn’t have jobs, those who were struggling, maybe those who didn’t get too much education.” Abdallah's story is emblematic of contemporary Lebanon. He comes from a lower-middle-class family, small landowners in the eastern territories. “I took my high school exam in a tent in that camp,” he says.
Abdallah was able to go to college, like his brother, who is also a doctor at the hospital. He studied medicine in Romania, then moved to Russia for a time. That was in another era, when a part of Lebanon had very good relations with the Soviet Union. His brother studied in Lyon, but is keen to point out that universities in Beirut were once full of French professors and also delivered good education.
In 1995, Abdallah started building the hospital; no one can say exactly where he got the money for it. The clinic looks new, well-maintained, clean and efficient. He walks through the wards with the air of a boss, which is quite literally what he is. There’s no doubt that he must be the head of one of the clans in eastern Beka'a.
This is a multi-million-dollar hospital, right next to a factory he also owns that produced intravenous solutions, Serum & Solutions. “Just before the war, we bought a $4 million machine from Italy, but now it's sitting at the port because no one is willing to take the risk to deliver it to us,” he tells us.
His son, Hamad, who studied in Europe and the United States, tells us that “if the situation remains the same, we will run out of supplies within a month.” Until recently, the family factory produced 40 percent of the bags of IV solutions used by Lebanese hospitals: some 60-70 hospitals depended on them. “Now we have no bags. We were deceived by the head of an Italian company.” After they placed three consecutive orders, the man, whom the Abdallahs call a “thief,” demanded a $200,000 advance and never sent the goods.
Furthermore, Hamad tells us, “production has stopped because we used to get raw materials from Syria, but the road at the border was bombed and the goods are longer coming. Then we turned to a supplier in Tyre” – but the invasion ground everything to a halt. “This is a huge problem,” he concludes, complaining that the Ministry of Health is not doing anything to mitigate the situation.
Dr. Abdallah tells us about the early days of the escalation. “After the pagers blew up, 150 Hezbollah members arrived here,” over three days, starting Sept. 17. “On the first day, there were those with eye and hand wounds. On the second, it was those injured in the lower body. Then the less serious ones.” Some of the militiamen were later transferred to Iran and Iraq. What about civilians? “In the first days, as many as 2,300 were coming in every 24 hours.”
Of the 431 hospitalized in that week, as many as 79 died. “Then the numbers fell to 30-50 a day, because they all left, either to Syria or to other regions of the country that they thought were safer.” When we ask him what are the main problems of a hospital in Lebanon today and what they need the most, he says: “For starters, you could not send us tons of drugs about to expire!”
He tells us about a donation of 30,000 vials of antiemetic received from Turkey through the Red Cross, which “are going to expire before we get to use them.” What they need the most is oxygen, gasoline for the power generators, and secure international channels to receive supplies from abroad.
After the hospital, he takes us on a tour of the factory, pointing to everything around as if he owns everything in sight. “The problem,” he concludes, ”is that there is only one country that can resolve the situation here: the United States. And the Lebanese government wants that as well... But those who are fighting don't.” He is a pragmatic pacifist: “In war, the hospitals don't work well and the money doesn't flow. When there’s armed conflict, everyone loses – but those who are fighting never understand that.”
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/negli-ospedali-libanesi-inizia-a-mancare-tutto on 2024-10-09