Lebanese Hospitals Say Lives at Risk Due to Electricity Crisis

Hospitals in Lebanon are warning that worsening power cuts and fuel shortages are gravely impacting the health sector.

Asharq al-Awsat newspaper has quoted the head of the private hospital syndicate Suleiman Haroun as saying that hospitals had enough fuel stocks to operate generators for just two days, instead of two weeks.

Firass Abiad, the head of the Rafik Hariri main public hospital battling the Covid pandemic, said the lives of patients were also at risk.

"For most hospitals in Lebanon, the major concern currently is not the (coronavirus) Delta variant, nor shortages in supplies. The major worry now is electricity, without which medical equipment cannot work," Abiad wrote on Twitter.

"Old generators cannot continue running nonstop. When they breakdown, lives will be at risk," he warned.

Lebanese citizens are grappling with a raft of shortages, including petrol, as the caretaker government discusses lifting subsidies it can no longer afford amid what the World Bank says is one of the world's worst financial crises since the 1850s.

The local currency has meanwhile lost more than 90 percent of its value on the black market.

The Lebanese state is providing less than five hours of electricity a day in most areas, as it struggles to come up with the foreign currency for fuel imports.

The government resigned after a deadly port explosion on August 4 last year, but a deeply divided political class has failed since to agree on a new cabinet to lift the nation out of crisis.