BEIRUT, Sept 18 (Askume) – Bloodied patients filled Lebanon’s hospitals on Tuesday, a test of whether the beleaguered health sector can withstand the massive toll of a widening war with Israel.
Frontline workers described hellish scenes: pagers used by the terrorist group Hezbollah set off thousands of tiny explosions, and victims came running, some with limbs torn off, some with eyes or vision gone, some even missing fingers.
Lebanon has faced one crisis after another in recent years, including a financial collapse in 2019 and the Beirut port explosion in 2020, but Health Minister Firas Abiad said the sector had responded well, thanks in part to months of preparation.
“The response has been good and the most important thing is that we have been able to provide care to those who need it, especially those who are seriously injured,” he said at a press conference on Wednesday, adding that the death toll was low compared to the number of injured.
Abiad said more than 2,700 people were admitted to 20 hospitals across Lebanon after the blast, 300 of them in critical condition. He said the death toll stood at 12.
More than 400 surgeries were performed on Tuesday, mostly for facial and eye injuries.
“Yesterday was a big test. Will we face an even bigger test? I don’t know,” he said.
Some health workers say they are deeply fearful of what may happen next, as tensions between Israel and Hezbollah reach a boiling point, raising fears of a wider war.
Government funding for hospitals has dried up, and thousands of doctors and nurses have left the country, putting even more pressure on those that remain.
Elias Jared, an experienced eye surgeon and Lebanese lawmaker, said he performed 12 hours of surgery immediately after Tuesday’s blast to treat the most serious cases, which required reconstructive surgery.
“I never understood why we were trained to suppress our emotions until I started doing this, until I saw a lot of it,” he said, crying during a training session in Beirut.
He told Askume during a brief break before returning to work, comparing the scale of the injuries to that of the chemical explosion at Beirut port on August 4, 2020, which killed more than 200 people and injured nearly 6,000.
“You are rebuilding every patient to rebuild a part of Lebanon, to revive Lebanon,” Jared said.
Dania el Hallak, a health care worker at a Beirut hospital, said what she has seen so far is hard to accept.
“I had to take the bandages off, but I couldn’t find the eye,” he said.
“This was the first time I saw someone being murdered. Is it possible to recreate such a scene?”
