It is harder for people with cancer to get medicine than it is to fight the disease

Cancer patients in Lebanon are betting the Central Bank of Lebanon will provide the necessary credit to import cancer treatments, after a drug shortage has prevented ten percent of patients from getting their drugs in the past two months.
During a sit-in held the day before yesterday in Beirut, in which the Director General of the Ministry of Health participated, cancer patients in Lebanon raised their voices and condemned the government’s inability to provide treatment. “I’m willing to pay for the treatment … but it has to be commercially available first,” says one of the patients in a video clip that was widely shared on social media.
This sit-in shed light on a major humanitarian crisis affecting thousands of cancer patients in Lebanon, as well as tens of thousands of other patients, in terms of the scarcity of drugs in pharmacies and their unavailability after the confusion that arose over the lifting. of subsidies on some of them and the inability to open credits to the Central Bank to import subsidized credits. And following the decline in the Central Bank’s hard currency reserves that it provides for the importation of subsidized commodities such as fuels, medicines, medical supplies and food, and its discontinuation of supporting a large part of them, a deal was made two months ago to provide hard currency to import chronic disease drugs with $ 50 million a month in support, including, of course, cancer treatments .
The sources of the Ministry of Health told Asharq Al-Awsat that the opening of credits is linked to the Central Bank of Lebanon, stressing that the circular issued yesterday, the governor of the Bank of Lebanon, Riad Salameh, “is supposed to solve the crisis ”, hoping that this measure will help provide treatment.
And the media office of the interim government’s Minister of Public Health, Hamad Hassan, said in a statement: yesterday informed that the Bank of Lebanon has started to grant the accumulated authorizations and the approval of the ministry some time ago. There are 1800 invoices. The ministry called on the importing companies to “start distributing the blocked drug and shipping the piece, from yesterday.”
Rita never imagined that providing the drugs necessary to continue her cancer treatment would trouble her more than suffering from a disease that ravaged her body three years ago, after drugs for incurable diseases and chronic diseases were not spared the consequences of the economic collapse. Rita, 53, who preferred to use a pseudonym, told Agence France-Presse: “A cancer patient suffers the most in the universe … Treatment is like fire entering your body. .. We must first of all look for a drug. . “
10 percent of cancer patients have not received their treatments in the past two months, according to the head of the hematology and oncology department of the University Medical Center at St. George’s Hospital, Dr. Joseph Makdisi , stressing in a statement carried by “Reuters” that this problem “needs an immediate solution”.
Cancer drugs are still subsidized, which means agents have to wait for funds to be imported by a central bank that has exhausted its reserves. But Dr Makdissi is not optimistic that cutting cancer drug subsidies will solve the problem for his patients. Some drugs used in chemotherapy, which can cost up to $ 5,000 per session, are currently subsidized. This means that the patient pays around $ 400, while the rest of the cost will be borne by the state. “Even if they increase this subsidy to provide medicine, many patients will not be able to afford the cost,” Makdisi said.
A report published by the World Cancer Monitor of the World Health Organization last March documented that Lebanon has recorded 28,764 cancer cases in the past five years, including 11,600 cases in 2020. However, doctors explain that the number of people receiving treatment exceeds this number. Whereas the duration of treatment for some patients can stretch for years.
The head of the Association of Hematologists of Lebanon, Professor Ahmed Ibrahim, told AFP that around two thousand to 2,500 cases of leukemia and lymphatic diseases are recorded each year in Lebanon, and that “at the except a few drugs which are used in their treatment “are currently available. And he warned that “if the treatment of these people is not continued periodically, some of them will die”, noting that “some patients were on the verge of recovery and have reached a stage nearing the end. processing. Suddenly the medicine was cut off from them.
Faced with the crisis, Minister Hamad Hassan announced on Wednesday the intention of the World Bank and international institutions to “allocate a sum of $ 25 million to buy chronic and intractable drugs” to provide them to the Lebanese.
Several initiatives and associations are making their voices heard, including the Barbara Nassar association, which supports cancer patients, and organized a vigil in Beirut on Thursday, in which dozens of patients participated, to demand the supply of drugs against cancer. Cancer.
The head of the association, Hani Nassar, said: “Imagine that in Lebanon, a cancer patient, with all his worries, is asked to take to the streets and demand medicine. is unable to control the crisis? He pointed out that the danger lies in some patients “may die later” unless they take “drugs that protect their bodies from the wider spread of cancer” today.
Reuters quoted the patient, Christine Tohme, as saying she had third-degree colon cancer and that doctors had prescribed six sessions of chemotherapy for her. But she has only undergone three sessions so far. With the cancer spreading to her lymph nodes, Kristen worries that she may only be able to survive for a few months if she is unable to complete her treatment.
The Barbara Nassar Association for the Support of Cancer Patients provided more than $ 1.5 million in medicine in 2020 through in-kind donations from former patients. However, according to Hani Nassar, internal political struggles in the country are hampering efforts to alleviate the crisis. He added: “The Central Bank wants to lift the subsidy, and the Ministry of Health doesn’t, and between this and that, patients go without treatment.”