BEIRUTE (AP) – Death lurks the corridors of Rafik Hariri University Hospital in Beirut, where losing several patients in one day to COVID-19 has become the new normal. On Friday, the mood among the team was even more solemn when a young woman lost the battle against the virus.
There was silence as the woman, in her early 30s, took her last breath. Then a brief commotion. The nurses frantically tried to resuscitate her. Finally, exhausted, they silently removed the oxygen mask and tubes – and covered the body with a brown blanket.
The woman, whose name is being withheld for privacy reasons, is one of 57 victims who died on Friday and more than 2,150 lost to the virus so far in Lebanon, a small country with a population of nearly 6 million who since the year past has struggled with the worst economic and financial crisis in its modern history.
In recent weeks, Lebanon has seen a dramatic increase in virus cases after the holiday season, when restrictions have eased and thousands of expatriates have returned home for a visit.
Now hospitals across the country are almost out of beds. Oxygen tanks, ventilators and, more critically, medical staff, are extremely scarce. Doctors and nurses say they are exhausted. Facing exhaustion, many of his colleagues left.
Many others caught the virus, forcing them to take sick leave and leaving fewer and fewer colleagues working overtime to carry the burden.
For each bed that opens after a death, three or four patients wait in the emergency room to take their place.
Hospital nurse Mohammed Darwish said he works six days a week to help increase hospitalizations and barely see his family.
“It’s tiring. It is a health sector that is not good today, ”said Darwish.
More than 2,300 Lebanese health professionals have been infected since February, and about 500 of Lebanon’s 14,000 doctors have left the country in crisis in recent months, according to the Medical Association. The virus is placing an additional burden on the public health system that was already on the verge of collapse because of the country’s currency drop and inflation, as well as the consequences of the massive explosion at the port of Beirut last summer. which killed almost 200 people, injured thousands and devastated entire sectors of the city.
“Our feeling is that the country is falling apart,” World Bank Regional Director Saroj Kumar Jha told reporters at a virtual news conference on Friday.
At the Rafik Hariri University Hospital, the main government facility for coronavirus, there are currently 40 beds in the ICU – all of them full. According to the World Health Organization, Beirut hospitals are at 98% capacity.
Across the city, at the private American University Medical Center – one of Lebanon’s largest and most prestigious hospitals – space is being freed up to accommodate more patients.
But that is not enough, according to Dr. Pierre Boukhalil, head of the Pulmonary and Critical Care department. His team was clearly overwhelmed during a recent visit by The Associated Press, jumping from patient to patient amid the constant beep-beep of life-monitoring machines.
The situation “can only be described as a near-disaster or a tsunami in the making,” he said, speaking to the AP between checking on his patients. “We have been consistently increasing capacity over the past week and we are not even meeting demands. This is not decreasing. ”
Boukhalil’s hospital gave the alarm last week, issuing a statement saying its health workers were overworked and unable to find beds for “even the most critical patients”.
Since the start of the holiday season, daily infections have been hovering around 5,000 in Lebanon, against nearly 1,000 in November. The number of daily deaths has reached a record of more than 60 deaths in the past few days.
Doctors say that with the increase in tests, the number of cases has also increased – a common trend. Lebanon ‘s vaccination program is scheduled to begin next month.
The World Bank said on Thursday that it approved $ 34 million to help pay for vaccines for Lebanon that will inoculate more than 2 million people.
Jha, the World Bank’s regional director, said that Lebanon will import 1.5 million doses of vaccines from Pfizer to 750,000 people that “we are fully funding”. He added that the World Bank also plans to help finance vaccines in addition to Pfizer in the Mediterranean nation.
Darwish, the nurse, said that many COVID-19 patients admitted to Rafik Hariri and especially in the ICU, are young, with no underlying conditions or chronic illnesses.
“They take the corona and they think everything is fine and, suddenly, you discover that the patient is deteriorated and it hits them suddenly and, unfortunately, they die.”
On Thursday night, Sabah Miree, 65, was admitted to the hospital with respiratory problems. She received oxygen to help her breathe. His two sisters also contracted the virus, but the case was mild. Miree, who has a heart condition, had to be hospitalized.
“This disease is not a game,” she said, describing how difficult it is for her to continue breathing. “I would tell everyone to pay attention and not take it lightly.”
A nationwide 24-hour curfew imposed on January 14 was extended on Thursday until February 8 to help the healthcare industry deal with the increase in the virus.
“I still have nightmares when I see a 30-year-old man who has passed away,” said Dr. Boukhalil. “The disease could have been prevented.”
“So keep the block … it’s worth it,” he said.