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BEIRUT (AP) – Death roams the halls of Rafik Hariri University Hospital in Beirut, where losing multiple patients in one day to COVID-19 has become the new normal. On Friday, the mood among staff was even more solemn when a young woman lost the battle with the virus.
There was silence as the woman, barely in her thirties, took her last breath. Then a brief agitation. 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 withheld for confidentiality reasons, is one of 57 victims who died on Friday and more than 2,150 victims of the virus so far in Lebanon, a small country of nearly 6 million people who, since last year, has been struggling. with the worst economic and financial crisis in its modern history.
In recent weeks, Lebanon has seen a dramatic increase in cases of the virus, following the holiday season when restrictions were relaxed and thousands of expats returned home for a visit.
Today, hospitals across the country are almost out of beds. Oxygen tanks, ventilators and, most importantly, medical personnel are extremely rare. Doctors and nurses say they are exhausted. Faced with professional exhaustion, several of their colleagues left.
Many more have caught the virus, forcing them to take sick leave and leaving fewer and fewer co-workers to work overtime to shoulder the burden.
For each bed that becomes available after a death, three or four patients wait in the emergency room to take their place.
Mohammed Darwish, a nurse at the hospital, said he worked six days a week to help cope with increasing hospitalizations and barely saw his family.
“It’s tiring. It’s a health sector that is not at all good these days,” Darwish said.
More than 2,300 Lebanese health workers have been infected since February, and about 500 of the 14,000 Lebanese doctors have left the country in crisis in recent months, according to the College of Physicians. The virus puts an additional burden on a public health system that was already on the brink of collapse due to the currency crash and inflation in the country, as well as the aftermath of the massive Beirut port explosion last summer . which killed nearly 200 people, injured thousands and devastated entire areas of the city.
“Our feeling is that the country is falling apart,” World Bank regional director Saroj Kumar Jha told reporters at a virtual press conference on Friday.
At Rafik Hariri University Hospital, the main government facility dealing with coronaviruses, there are currently 40 beds in the intensive care unit – all full. According to the World Health Organization, hospitals in Beirut have a capacity of 98%.
Across town, at the private American University medical center – one of Lebanon’s largest and most prestigious hospitals – space is being made available to accommodate more patients.
But that is not enough, according to Dr Pierre Boukhalil, head of the pulmonary and intensive care department. Its staff were clearly overwhelmed on a recent visit to The Associated Press, jumping from patient to patient amid the constant beeping of life-monitoring machines.
The situation “can only be described as a looming disaster or a developing tsunami,” he said, speaking to the PA between checks on his patients. “We have constantly increased capacity over the past week, and we are not even responding to requests. It’s not letting go. ”
Boukhalil hospital sounded the alarm last week, with a statement saying its health workers were overwhelmed and unable to find beds for “even the most critical patients”.
Since the start of the holiday season, daily infections have hovered around 5,000 in Lebanon, up from nearly 1,000 in November. The daily death toll has reached over 60 in the past few days.
Doctors say that with the increase in testing, the number of cases has also increased – a common trend. Lebanon’s vaccination program is expected to start next month.
The World Bank said Thursday it has approved $ 34 million to help pay for vaccines for Lebanon that will immunize more than 2 million people.
Jha, regional director of the World Bank, said Lebanon will import 1.5 million doses of Pfizer vaccine for 750,000 people that “we are fully funding”. He added that the World Bank is also planning to help fund non-Pfizer vaccines in the Mediterranean nation.
Darwish, the nurse, said many COVID-19 patients admitted to Rafik Hariri and especially intensive care, are young, with no underlying conditions or chronic illnesses.
“They grab the crown and they think everything is fine, then all of a sudden you find the patient deteriorated and he suddenly hits them and unfortunately they die.”
On Thursday evening, Sabah Miree, 65, was admitted to hospital with breathing problems. She was put on oxygen to help her breathe. Her two sisters had also caught the virus but their case was mild. Miree, who suffers from a heart problem, had to be hospitalized.
“This disease is not a game,” she said, describing how difficult it is for her to keep breathing. “I would tell everyone to be careful and not to take this lightly.”
A 24-hour national curfew imposed on January 14 was extended Thursday until February 8 to help the health sector cope with the outbreak of 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 stick with the lockdown… it pays,” he said.
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