Report authors have recommended a series of policy options to bring about stability within the healthcare system. These are the issues which people care about. As the report, based on a literature review and findings from interviews, shows the past two years have been turbulent. The massive explosion in Beirut, Lebanon in August arrived on top of a Covid induced public health crisis, a 10 ten-year war and protracted humanitarian disaster in neighbouring Syria, years of environmental degradation, currency devaluation, and an economic meltdown.
These multi-pronged crises have wrecked the daily lives of people in Lebanon; the population has been thrown into a state of flux, thousands have fled the country with little hope of stability if they remain. Millions of Lebanese as well as the estimated 1. Desperation and dependency are good for patronage politicsβ¦No one in power really wants the state to fulfil its mandate.
The report notes the health sector β a key public good and a potential stabilising force - is on the verge of collapse: a severe lack of medications across frontline health services; the departure of thousands of staff from the health workforce; and the dwindling finances and basic operational resources needed to keep the system going. Thousands have abandoned the health system due to costs. The report authors argue this threatens to create a public health disaster. Multiple attempts have been made by the World Bank, United Nations and European Union to strengthen and reform the Lebanese public health care system.
However, this has been met by political management keen instead to bolster the private health care industry from which many Lebanese politicians have benefited financially. Above all the Lebanese population do not trust the political system or government to run any public services. Dr Fouad M.
This is like what many European countries spend. Lebanon is not unique in terms of its political ruling class giving low priority to the health and the wellbeing of its citizens. Typically health and social welfare policies across the region are concerned with profit and cure rather than access and prevention. Little thought is given to preventive healthcare.
